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253 The Amazon. By Carl Vosmaer 10 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair but 

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[continued on third page of COVER.] 

(4) 


A WOMAN’S LOVE-STORY 


A NOVEL. 



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A WOMAN’S LOVE-STORY 


CHAPTER 1. 

Lilith was ugly. She was tall, ihin, tawny, with a thick mane 
of black hair, and black eyes that had a sort of ferocity in their in- 
tent gaze. She was the only grandchild of the popular Squire 
Ware; and there was not a more popular couple than the rubicund 
jolly squire and the kind little old lady madam, his wife, for 
miles around. There was always a welcome for guests at 
the old Slone Hall; at Heathside Hall there was open house. 
Then the squire was a good magistrate, a careful preserver 
of game, gave handsomely to the church, was devoted to the 
poor and to widows, and the sick had reason to bless his very 
name, as they did. Then Lilith’s mother, the beautiful Mrs. 
Drew, who had mysteriously reappeared in her father's home 
some years after her marriage with the dashing young Guards- 
man, Captain Drew, and who, with the child Lilith, had lived there 
in seclusion ever since, held the county sympathy by reason of her 
worse than widowhood. Still every one called Lilith ugly. And 
they shrunk from her, and wondered how the handsome old squire- 
and pretty madam,' and the delicate graceful Mrs. Drew— who, with 
her willowy figure and pallid beauty, reminded people of a lily— 
could make such a fuss about the swarthy gypsy-like creature, 
The gossips said sue was wonderfully clever, could paint anybody 
or anytniiig, could sing and play, and read those solemn-looking 
calf-bound tomes in the great library at the Hall with the same relish 
with which any other girl would read a story-book. Still they looked 
upon her cleverness as somewhat witchlike. They could not forget 
that the dark handsome scoundrel who had loved and won the coun- 
ty belle Lilian Ware, and had afterward brutally deserted her and 
eloped witn an actress, was Lilith’s father. When good old ladies, 
talked about Lilith over their tea, they would charitably say that, if 
she was ugly — which was an undoubted fact — it \vas a mercy that 
she was nothing wome. Still there was time yet even for that, they i 
would sorrowfully add, with bated breath.' 1 

Yes, there was time yet. Lilith was like some darkly-shut bud on 
a suspected but little- understopd plant. The bud might burst into 
almost any extraordinary blossom. 

It was the eve of her fifteenth birthday, a warm, still summer ■ 
evening in June. She had dined with her grandfather, grand- 
mother, and mother, but had been darkly silent during the meal. 
Ordinarily she burst out with all the thoughts which had agitated 
her restless mind during the day, with her quaint fancies— which 


6 


A woman’s love-story. 

the squire would laugh at or listen to as his humor prompted, while 
deaf Madam W are would enjoy watching the v ary in.i>: expressions 
upon her loved ones' faces, and placid Mrs. Drew would hang upon 
this curious being’s queer words, in her chronic wonderment how 
this dark, strange, clever creature came to be her nwn child, her one 
only possession in life. But to nii^ht Lilith’s mind was oppressed 
with the magnitude of the birthday favor she was about to ask. It 
had been the squire’s custom to grant one request of hers on the eve 
of each anniversary of her birth, as it came round— provided always 
that it was in his power to grant the desired favor. Generally both 
her mother and grandfather well knew what her demand would be 
—for Lilith was honestly outspoken. But this time she had said 
nothing to any one. She had only had fits of silence, and her lone* 
ly g 5 ^psy-]ike wanderings about the estate had been longer and more 
frequent. Her mother wondered on the subject languidly and re- 
signedly, as she had always thought and felt since her social martyr- 
dom. The squire also wondered “what the chit would be up to 
next " when he happened to think of Lilith and the coming birth- 
day. A.nd that evening, as soon as the men-servants had removed 
the table-cloth, and the four were alone, sitting round the polished 
mahogany table laden with silver dishes of ruddy strawberries and 
other June fruit, he leaned back in his chair, lucking his thumbs 
into his arm-holes, gave a long low chuckle as he looked at Lilith, 
and said — 

“ Well, little mistress, your old grandfather hasn’t forgotten what 
day it is to-morrow ; nor you either — eh, wench ? What are you 
going to rob me of this time? You stole my heart the first birthday, 
you know! There’s nothing of that sort left — mind that! Come, 
out wiili it!” 

Lilith’s black eyes fixed themselves on her grandfather’s joyous 
face, the rubicund jollity of which had made folk say Squire Ware’s 
visage was “ a sight for sore eyes;’’ then she turned them swiftly 
toward her mother. 

“ 1 sha’n’t say it out. 1 will whisper it, if you like,” she said. 

“Hoity-toity! Here's mystery for you! Here’s necromancy and 
what’s -its-name! Mother mustn’t hear— eh, Lil?” 

The squire was always childishly gratified by any one’s confi- 
dence, however trivial. If a village child came up and thrust its 
dirty little hand into his — as children would instinctively do some- 
times— the soiled little paw was sure of a warm shake, and was 
sometimes clinched upon a bright silver sixpence afterward. So he 
willingly lent his ear. But, as Lilith whispered, he looked puzzled. ^ 

“ Eh— what do you mean?” he asked. 

Lilith whispered again — then suddenly flew off out of the room, 

“ She said, * Give me myself.’ Is anything wrong with the lass? 
Has she gone cranky? What does she mean?’’ asked the squire 
blankly of Mrs. Drew. 

“1 Ihink I understand, father,” said the faded but beautiful lady, 
her thin cheeks flushing just a little. “ She wants to — to go aw^ay.” 

“ Where — where on earth to?” cried the squire hastily. 

‘ School? Didn’t I say she ought to go to school long ago? She’s 
too old now. Just like all you women! When you’re wanted to do 
a thing, you won’t; but, when the right time for doing the thing is 


A WOMAiq^’S LOVE STORY. 


7 


over and past and gone, oh. then you’re hot on it, and youTl hear of 
naught else! Well, it she wants to go, 1 say she sha’n't go! So there 
now! Put that in your pipes and smoke it I” 

The squire w^as peppery at times; but no one thought much of his 
little splutteringsl. He was seriously put out now. He pushed 
back his chair, got up, and went uff to his smoking-room. 

‘‘ Something is amiss, my love,” said the deaf old lady, who had 
been anxiously listening from the bottom of the big dining-table, 
” or your dear father would not forget his manners.” 

” Nor his port,” added Mrs. Drew, who in her gentle monotone 
could unconsciously say much that was to the point. Sbe looked 
back through the dining-room window as she gave her arm to her 
mother, and, as she helped her to walk carefully to the great draw- 
ing-room where they sat at night, she fancied she saw Lilith flit like 
a bat across the sunset background. 

Lilith had gone out into the grounds. She had paused on the 
lower terrace. The square gray stone mansion stood on the brow of 
aslope; the hall -door opened upon the carriage-drive. This road 
wound through the thickly-wooded park where the deer were crouch- 
ing to rest ajpong the bracken under the shrubbery fence. The 
shrubberies were mj^sterious in the twilight ; but the house lay be- 
tween Lilith and this darkening landscape. She stood opposite to 
the glowing sky. While the orange and golden lakelets among the 
crimson and snowy clouds flushed the gray-stone faQade and turned 
the glass windows into glittering jewels, they 'were reflected on Lil- 
ith’s dark face; and she looked like some elf, with her fiery eyes 
shining under her brown garden- bonnet. 

Before her lay the garden, laid out in prim walks, with high box 
borders. The beds were a tangled mass ot bushy old-fashioned 
flowers. To the right, towering elms and bushy chestnuts hid the 
stables and outhouses, the big barn and sheds. To the left was the 
kitchen-garden wall. The flower-garden sloped to the ” wild part,” 
as Lilith called it. Here ferns flourished under the nut-trees. The 
fish-pond and a hut with a thick thatch that was called “the wig- 
wam” —a favorite haunt of Lilith’s— were both indistinct under 
the row ot poplars which stood between the squire’s garden and his 
wide fields. 

Lilith was in one of her fiercest humors, half passion, half pain. 
She gazed with a passionate longing tow^ard the world behind those 
slim black poplars. It looked as if the gorgeous world of her im- 
agination was bathed in gold,- while her little corner ot it was in the 
shadow. She stretched out her arms toward “ the world ” she 
longed to be in and about; but there was hope mingled with the 
longing to-day. She was asking to go into that long-dreamt-of 
world, which her imagination had unfolded in hundreds of wonder- 
ful pictures more wildly beautiful than Claude’s or Turner’s. The 
world was to Lilith a huge unending Olympic game, with millions 
of prizes for trifling victories. They could not, dared not, refuse to 
let her enter the lists— especially her ambitious mother, whose sigh 
was for “ something to live for.” 

Lilith’s passion was desire for the world. Her pain was a sort of 
remorse to leave her present life. Those three — g-randfather, grand- 
mother, mother— it seemed like treason to confess that they did not 


8 


A WOMAi^'s LOYE'STOKY. 

fill that life. 'Tiien the old home — each room, each bit of furniture, 
was part of those fifteen years of hers, -just as each animal, plant, 
tree,* flower, was a friend. 

She had been a curious babe. She was two years old when her 
mother brought her back to the old home. She had been very fond 
of the handsome gay father, who was never cross to any one. He 
had made a joke of her. His words to her mother, when he first 
saw the babe, had been, “ Hallo, Lil, you’ve given me a little In- 
dian!’— and he treated her as some pet bit of ugliness. When he 
came home, flushed and excited, from some Bohemian gathering 
where his siren, a popular actress, had intoxicated his sense of 
beauty, he would ask for his “papoose,” as he called her, and 
play with her— not roughl}" — tor it was not in his nature to be rough 
— but fantastically, tossing her about with his delicate hands, carry- 
ing her on his shoulder, and letting her long brown fingers twine 
themselves in his curly hair, kissing her. Her mother Lilian was 
nothing to him then, not even a feather’s weight upon his conscience. 
The child was his own flesh and blood, and he pelted her for lack 
of something better, till one day he suddenly and unexpectedly real- 
ized his ideal. His beloved, the stage beauty, quarreled with a 
far more important admirer, and in a hufi bestowed herself upon 
Captain Drew. They were oft and away in a few hours, and their 
elopement was a nine days’ wonder, 

Mrs. Drew accepted her fate with self-contained tlignity. She did 
not break down. She went quietly home with “ the papoose ” and 
her nurse, and arrived at Heathside Hall with her ordinary gentle 
complacency. The squire was boiling over with rage. Madam Ware 
was bowed with erief. The injured wife was the calmest member 
of the household. She stipulated that her misfortune was not to be 
alluded to. Then she took up the old routine of her giilhood. She 
painted and practiced music in her former sitting-room. She did 
the honors of the house, and visited the neighbors on behalf of her 
deaf mother, as she had been wont to do. She had Lilith with her 
for a certain time each day, and superintended the nursery as any 
ordinary mother would do in ordinary circumstances. Her dowry 
—a handsome one— was strictly settled on herself, so there was no 
legal trouble. She said that she would have nothing to do with di- 
vorce, and that any one who interfered in her aftairs without her 
knowledge or consent would be considered by her as a personal en- 
emy. So even her most indignant champion next to her father — the 
energetic Hector of the parish — was hushed down, and thereafter held 
his peace. 

Little Lilith missed her playfellow. She was an eccentric baby. 
She would flush up, turn away, and clutch at her nurse or mother 
at the very sight of some people, and would hold out her arms to 
others. She stared solemnly around her at first when she came to 
the Hall, and would not be betrayed into a smile. It seemed as if 
she looked upon these new surroundings as barriers between her and 
her lather. “Da,” as she had called him, was evidently in her 
baby-thoughts. * She was always peering suspiciously into corners, 
and her unsteady totterings about the big rooms were strangely like 
voyages of discovery. After staggering from chair to chair, she 
would look thoughtfully about her, then suddenly drop down and 


A WOMANS ’S LOAE 'STOEA". 9 

shuffle off rapidly on hands and knees to some curtain or table-cover. 
This she would lift slowly and gingerly, and peer behind the dra- 
pery. Evidently disappointed, she would sit gravely on the carpet,, 
her hands in her lap, a solemn puzzled look upon her quaint baby- 
face, pondering. She had begun to prattle an infantine babble; but 
from the first day at Heathside she was silent for a time, except : 

when, on occasion, she would awake suddenly in the night with a 
shrill cry, and, when pacified, would sob out, “ Da!” 

“ It makes my blood run cold to see her all a-fret after the wicked 
wretch!” her nurse Mary, a stern upright woman, who had lived 
years in the Ware family, would say afterward below-stairs. 

But Lilith’s baby-dreams were not mentioned to her mother. By 
degrees the void in the little life was filled — Lilith began to love her 
mother. She would watch for her, and would be angry and beat . 
her nurse when Mary came to carry her back to the nursery. Mrs: ; 
Drew began to have influence o rer her child; Lilith would control 
her temper at a glance from her mother. With Mrs. Drew she was 
content. She would sit for hours on the floor, gravely drawing queer 
shapes with pencil-stumps on odds and ends of paper, whileher mother 
painted. Mrs. Drew made charmingly fanciful water-color draw- J 

ings, and gave them to her friends or sold them at fancy bazaars. ' 

They were delicate representations of calm nooks in nature— quiet L 
dells, with drooping willows and ferns reflected in calm transparent 
pools, or cottages in a snow-scene, with firs black against a lurid ^ 
winter sunset, or some Eastern oasis, tall palms, tree-ferns, cactus, 
with networks of giant creeping plants flung gracefully about in the ; w 
luminous tropical haze. ~ 

As time went on, Lilith began to meddle with the paints and 
brushes. Her'mother, who taught her all she herself knew, taught 
her to draw. Then came sketching excursions. Lilith’s sketches 
were crude daring pieces of effect. She would dash a sunset upon 
the paper in a few wild moments, catching the hues before they 
faded. When she was not playing or singing or wandering across 
country — her recreations after her lessons — to her, irksome work — ^ 
she was painting. She sketched rather than spoke her restless 
thoughts. 

Restless — for the child was not content. She felt as if something 
were urging her on — whither or tor what she knew not. She would 
start up out of sleep, feeling as if she were called, though she heard - 
no voice, only her heart beating in the silence. When she heard of 
some great deed, or read a stirring book, or was brought face to face 
with some noble work of art, a sudden fury seized her— a storm of 
desire and regret, a wild struggle to be free'to do, to act; but all this 
w^as abortive, confused. The fury raged and passed, leavina: no 
trace but a settled sensation that as soon as she was a grown girl she 
must go into the world and study to find out what her life-work was. 

“When 1 am fifteen!” she said resolutely. And to-night the 
time had arrived. * 

She turned, hearing a light footstep crackle on the. graveled terrace 
above. Mrs. Drew was coming toward her. Her sweet patient face, 
with the halo of fair hair, looked saintly in the eyes of her enthusi- 
astic child. Her gray silk dress gleamed in the reddight as she saw 
Lilith, and came tripping toward her down the broad stone steps* 


10 


A wcSiak's loye-story. 

“It feels damp,” she said, twisting her cambric handkerchief 
round her fair throat. “ Come into my room. Then we can talk 
over this tremendous communication which has scared poor grand- 
papa into the smoking-room.” 

“ No, here— now!” Lilith eagerly dragged her mother to a bench 
on the terrace, and held her hands as she rapidly poured out her con- 
fidence. She had known all along that she had something to do in 
life—” something more than the Rawsons and the Wrights and all 
the people about, mother, you know,” she said eagerly — “some- 
thing great, something 1 must study for from six in the morning till 
ten at night. But 1 must go away to London.” Then she unfolded 
her plans pretty clearly. She wanted to show her sketches to some 
emiuent painter, to hear his fiat. If he said she might be a painter, 
she would work unceasingly. Were his opinion unfavorable, she 
would try music — “ although 1 cannot love music like my painting,” 
she said, with a sigh. “ It is so vague; it gives one thoughts, but it 
does not realize them. Music seems tome the beginning of a whole 
universe of beautiful unknown things; but it never comes close to 
the things themselves. Painting gives you the things themselves. 
Oh, mother, why do you look life that?” tor a grave uneasiness 
settled upon Mrs. Brew’s wearily beautiful face. “ Are you not 
ambitious? Have you not told me your one wish was for something 
to look forward to — to live for? Do you not remember when you 
told me how disappointed you were 1 was born a girl instead of a 
boy, and how 1 asked you to turn me into a boy by cutting my hair 
and letting me wear boy’s clothes? Y^ou laughed at me then, of 
course. But I can be like a son to you now— in mind, in work. 
Why can’t 3 mu let me?” 

“My dear, 1 think 1 have learned to be practical by watching 
your Mild waj^s,” said Mrs. Brew, with an embarrassed smile. 
“ You have done me good; 1 should not now ask for the moon, or, 
as Mary would say, for the top brick of the chimney. I am — con- 
tent,” she went on, looking round with a sigh at the quiet evening 
beauty. “ If 1 w^ere not, 1 should be — ungrateful. To be content 
is'to be happy, Lilith.” 

“ Happy?” cried Lilith, with a fierce glance. “ Happy— and to 
look like a miu’tyr? 1 always think of you when 1 pass that picture 
of St. Catherine in the gallery. Yhu are like it. Y’oulook as if you 
were bearing torture for the sake of what was coming. Now my 
idea is — ” 

“ Come in and talk to grandpapa,” iuterruptedMrs. Brew abrupt- 
ly. Then, as they ascended the steps and went toward the long 
Mundows that opened upon the terrace, she spoke with mild sar- 
casm. “ 1 do not wish to cast any doubt upon the fact that jmu 
have only to paint a picture six feet by four and it will at once by 
general acclamation be hung upon the line,” she said quietly, “ or, 
that you have only to play those peculiar compositions of yours — 
which alM'ays make me think of gipsies — to some musical author- 
ity, and you will be engaged at once for the best concerts of the 
season. These things happen constantly — in novels.” 

“But did you not say there was hidden talent in my sketches? 
Bid not Mr. Kav^son say 1 was a painter lost?” 


A woman’s love-story. 11 

am your mother, Lilith. Mr. Rawson is your indulgent 
friend.” 

“ But 1 know— I feel it — tnysell.” 

Lilith spoke decidedly. Her mother said no more; but, as she 
pushed open the naif-closed window and stepped into the great 
drawing-room, she felt that, argue coolly and logically as she might, 
the fact that there were nerve, strength, and peculiarity in Lilith’s 
doings was undeniable. 

It may be a species of genius,” she thought. ” In any case, we 
ought to give it a chance.” 

So she went into the room intending to plead to a certain extent 
for Lilith’s wild fancies. She did not cross her father’s will. She 
could always make it incline toward her own when she chose to try. 

The great drawing-room was an imposing room — high, square, 
with four massive oaken doors and a huge carved oaken mantel- 
shelf opposite to the long windows that were modern innovations. 
It was» primly furnished with old cabinets full of rare china, with 
squat stools and heavy tables; and generations of' family portraits 
simpered or scowled upon the walls above the staight high backed 
chairs. 

Madam Ware was accustomed to the low seats, and said the hard 
flat backs kept her shoulders in. She was knitting in her usual 
corner near the flre-place, where she sat of evenings, summer and 
winter. The squire was standing witn his back to the hearth, his 
cheeks aflame, his wrathful eyes gleaming in the light of the wax- 
candles the footmen were arranging about the room. He had not had 
his port, and he bad forgotten himself before his women-folk, two 
potent excuses for ill-humor. 

He was certainly in a bad temper; but Mrs. Drew’s inert, grace- 
ful self-possession was an antidote to what the squire’s retainers 
called his “ tantrums. ” As his daughter reclined calmly upon an 
old-fashioned causeuse and, taking a feather tan from a table close 
at hand, began leisurely to fan herself, he felt ashamed, inferior, 
somehow. 

He felt still more ashamed as Mrs. Drew began to talk about Li- 
lith. Mrs. Drew could talk fluently and dispassionately, so that 
even clever men, on the alert, could scarcely detect where she failed 
in logic. 

JNo wonder that the squire — never a bookworm — felt respect for 
his daughter’s opinions when she gravel}^ held forth on the subject 
of Lilith. 

She first descanted on art, which the squire knew nothing about. 
She represented Lilith as a possible votary, chosen — as it were, pre- 
destined— to be lamous. This might be, just as Lilith herself and 
all about her might also be deceived. It was only just to Lilith to 
give her the chance of showing which of these two things was the 
truth. It xras impossible for this truth to be got at unless Lilith’s 
paintings were subjected to the opinion of an authority. Mrs. Drew 
pooh-poohed the musical tendency, in which she had little faith. 
Then she proposed the means of bringing about the desired result; 
and, after twenty minutes’ discussion, the squire found himself giv- 
ing his consent to his daughter’s and granddaughter’s migration to 
London, there to reside for an uncertain period. 


13 


A woman’s love-stoey. 

He stared incredulously when he suddenly realized what this 
meant. Then he gave a chuckle — but it was a half-hearted one. 

It seems strange-like — you two wanting to leave the old house. 
Well — there! It’ll be dull tor mother and me without you,” he said, 
as he went back to his room to calm himsell with a pipe. 

While Mrs. Drew explained in a shrill treble to Madam Ware 
What was going forward, Lilith stole out into the lofty hall. 

The armor looked ghostly in the dim light of the flickering lamp 
which swayed gently as it hung from the arched roof; patches of 
pale moolight fell on the checkered black and white of the marble 
flooring. Lilith went to the window. The park and shrubberies lay 
darkly before her, mist was rising and floating in mysterious cloud- 
lets. 

W as this emblematic of her coming life or her present state? Lilith 
had a habit of looking into the passing moods of nature for shadows 
of the future. 

“ Why is it all?” she asked herself. ” Why do we feel forced to do 
certain things that cannot benefit others, that cannot matter much? 
What is life for? To bring us through torments that will prepare 
us for the next?” 

Like all her fellows, she was destined to learn at least part of the 
truth, 

CHAPTER II. 

Squire Ware having consented to Mrs. Drew’s proposition to 
take Lilith to London for lessons, advice, et cmtera, the arrangements 
were speedily made. 

Mrs. Drew’s income — the interest of the capital which had been 
her dowry — had been more than sufficient to cover her expenditure 
during these years she had lived in her old home; so she had saved 
a considerable sum, and could afford to spend a few hundreds a year 
for at least some little time to come. 

She consulted her old friend and adviser, the popular Rector of the 
parish, and he approved her plans. These were to take a small 
house in London, to engage the head kitchen-maid and one of the 
housemaids at the Hall as cook and parlor-maid. The staunch 
Mary would continue to be maid to Lilith and herself. 

” I almost think you ought to have some masculine protection,” 
was the Rector’s half-doubtful remark. 

Mis. Drew preferred the protection of bolts, bars, locks, and 
chains. So it was settled that her new household should be en- 
tirely feminine. 

'.rhe house was chosen. Mrs. Drew went to town herself with 
the Rector and his wife, and made all the arrangements. The serv- 
ants were sent to London, the knickknacks and odds and ends had 
been packed and sent off. Mis. Drew and Lilith were spending 
their afternoons in paying farewell visits to neighboring countr3^- 
seats, rectories, or vicarages. A farewell dinner-party was arranged, 
when all was suddenly stopped. 

The squire was opening the post-bag as usual one morning, when 
Mrs. Drew, who was pouring out tea, saw him start, pause, then 
6tare at a letter and thrust it into his pocket. Her first impulse was ^ 


13 


A womak’s love-story. 

to ask what was the matter. Then she thought, “ It is no business 
of mine,’' and took no notice ot the squire’s hurried absent manner. 
There was a blank look of some emotion akin to dread upon His 
Kindly face. Mrs. Drew began to tear that her father had been 
speculating, and had come to grief. 

“ Something is wrong with grandpapa,” said Lilith, as he left his 
breakfast almost untasted, and, with some unintelligible excus*^ went 
away abruptly. 

Something was wrong. 

Squire Ware took his hat and stick, went off to the stables, per- 
emptorily ordered a groom to stop rubbing down a carriage-horse 
and to saddle his cob, then stood chafing and fuming during the proc- 
ess, and mounted before the beast was fairly saddled and bridled, 
touching his flanks so smartly with his riding- whip that the steady 
brute clattered excitedly over the stable-yard stones and through the 
gates, albeit he carred a human being of sixteen stone. 

” Summat’s oop wi’ squire,” said the groom stolidly to the old 
coachman, who came out munching, disturbed while breakfasting 
by the unwonted sound of a horse’s hoof at that hour ot the morn- 
ing. “ He’s daft-like!” And he mopped the sweat from his brow, 
for none who served the squire cared to intrude upon or serve him — 
alone — when his humor tended toward irascibility. 

Meanwhile the squire rode off by a back lane. He did not notice 
the sweet pink wild-roses 'wet with morning dew. A lark soared 
up into the pale blue sky, the tall green corn waved in the fresh 
breeze; but he had no eye or ear for sights and sounds which usually 
held him spell-bound. He rode by the hay-field without so much 
as a glance to see whether the scythes were busy, or whether the 
new tossing-machine had arrived; he rode impatiently through a 
drove of young porkers, who squeaked and rushed into the ditches 
on either side of the narrow lane, while the drover stared after 
the squire, his bugbear as an exacting master, in amazement. What 
were sheep, pigs, or any of his live possessions to the squire to-day? 
He was oppressed with mingled grief, anger, and disgust. He wns 
going to seek counsel and actual support from his old friend Hugh 
Bawson, the Rector. Meanwhile, as he rode along, hemuttered im- 
precations against a certain individual. He anathematized the day 
when this man was born; he anathematized the hour that brought 
them together. He ended his long string of severe sayings by the 
horrible utterance, “ ’Tis a good thing, after all, there’s a bad place 
— a dust-hole for human refuse such as he!” 

This thought was in his mind as his panting cob reached the top 
of the long slope, and, pausing, he saw the Rectory below him. The 
Rectory was a long low cottage-like building with a modest thatch, 
with iis white-washed walls ablaze with red climbing roses, with 
bushes of slender fuchsia and spiky lavender in the neat garden, so 
slightly protected by a low green paling that it seemed to say to the 
whole world, “Come in, and welcome!” Here, there, and every- 
where were well-pruned fruit-trees ; and around were grassy meadows, 
where the Rector’s cows and his sturdy horse grazed comfortably 
when they were not wanted. 

The sight of the quiet homestead was a reproach to the squire’s 
violent and unchristian humor. He rode his cob gently down the 


14 A woman’s love-story. 

lane leading to the Rectory fields, then dismounted, opened the gate, 
and led the horse through the long grass till they came to the little 
garden gate. 

Mrs. Rawson, at work in the front parlor with her daughters Kate 
and Mary, saw the squire pass. Mary flew out — she was the squire's 
pet- ; but he waved her away with a kind word. It was the Rector he 
wanted; and he threw the cob’s bridle round the gate-post and went 
straight in— through the narrow passage where guns, fishing-rods, 
and cues adorned the walls — to the Rector’s study. 

His knock was followed by a genial Come in!” 

“ Hey, but this is indeed an unexpected treat — the squire, of all 
persons, so early in the morning!” said the Rector, rising from his 
table, piled with books, where he had been hard at work since sun- 
rise, with an interval for breakfast, at his next Sunday’s sermon. 
‘'But come, my friend, sit ye here,” he added, with a change of 
voice, as he recognized some unusual condition in the squire’s livid 
drawn features and his unsteady gait. ” Sit ye here ” — gently forc- 
ing him into a roomy easy-chair near the open window. 

The Rector was a fine tall man, who stooped to enter by his low 
doorways; his handsome florid face was crowned by prematurely 
blanched hair; his keen black e 5 '^es, which seemed^to possess the fac- 
ulty of looking for and finding the truth, were softened as he saw he 
was wanted. Since Mrs. Drew’s desertion by “ that poor misguided 
fellow,” as the Rector mercifully designated Captain Drew, he had 
constantly prepared himself to be unexpectedly summoned to the 

Now he looked somewhat anxiously at the squire. Everyone knew 
that Squire Ware was a high liver of a full habit — a man to whose 
constitution shocks would come amiss. When the Rector first glanced 
at him, the unpleasant word ” apoplexy ” darted through his mind. 
But, when the squire was comfortably seated near to his clerical and 
sympathetic friend, his color began to right itself. There was some- 
thing soothing in the Rectory atmosphere. As he sat there he was 
opposite to a neatly -clipped gVass-plot, with an apple-tree in the cen- 
ter; so loaded with green apples that the boughs were propped. 
Around him were books, books— lines, piles of books— all arranged 
with the utmost neatness, either on the shelves or piled on tables. 
The only sounds were the cheerful voices of the merry girls and 
their mother in the next room, and the twittering u,f the birds in the 
pleasant garden. 

” 1 have come to tell ye— that blackguard is dead!” said the squire 
huskily. 

The Rector winced, then recovered himself. 

” Well, perhaps it is for the best,” he began encouragingly. 

“ Dear Lilian and her child — they will know their position— they will 
be freer to act.” 

For the best?” roared the squire. “Here” — his trembling 
fingers searching his breast-pocket — “ read that — then say if it is for 
the best!”— and he tossed a letter which bore a deep black border 
across to the Rector. 

He opened it. There were two sheets. 

“ Read the black-bordered first,” growled the squire. “ 'Tis the 


A WOxMAN’S loye-stoey. 15 

father, General Drew. Like father, like son ! However he dared — 
But read — read!’' 

The Rector read— slowly and carefully— turning back to the first 
page when he was at the second, more to give himself time to think 
than because there was any room for misinterpretation. 

“ Dear Sir, — By copy of letter inclosed you will see that my son. 
Captain Drew, is dead. He died not only penniless, but in debt. 
Therefore the fact that he left no will is insignificant. Of course the 
woman who ruined him, and her children, must go to the parisl^for 
assistance. Were 1 a rich man, instead of a poor pensioner, they 
should not receive one farthing from me. 1 am demanding my 
son’s clothes and effects. Should 1 find any papers that belong by 
right to his widow, your daughter, 1 will forward them to her; and 
1 have the honor to Ibe, dear sir, 

“ Your most obedient servant. 

“Gerald Drew.” 

“How read Totherl” hissed the squire, who had been watching 
his friend’s face. 

The Rector had formed a habit of controlling his facial expression, 
and, if he was so far moved that he felt his countenance tlireatening 
to turn traitor and betray his feelings, he would prevent this by purs- 
ing his lips, as if in doubt, and leisurely stroking his chin with his 
right hand. 

As he read the second letter, he pursed his lips and genth^ stroked 
his cheek and chin. 

It was from the “ play-actress,” as the squire scornfully termed the 
woman who had lured away his daughter’s husband, and written to 
General Drew— a wild passionate appeal. 

“Sir,— Do not be hard upon a broken-hearted woman. Your 
son is dead. He died suddenly. In the morning he left us— our 
children and myself — well, smiling, happy; in the afternoon tour 
men carried something to the door of our rooms, followed by a 
crowd. It was my beloved husband— dead 1 Do not grudge me the 
word ‘ husband.’ If ever a man and woman were man and wife in 
the sight ot Heaven, it was he and 1. You may have heard me 
lightly spoken of, but never, oh, never after the day we promised 
to be true to each other till death! As you know, when he took me 
abroad, he sold his commission. On this we lived fruaally, care- 
fully, till he obtained a small situation and 1 had learned French 
well enough to appear on the French stage. The language was 
against me; as my four children came 1 lost my bloom — 1 no longer 
commanded the old terms. We were poor, so poor! Yet he strug- 
gled through it all, and was cheerful and brave, and never would in- 
dulge himself in things which he had formerly looked upon as bare 
necessaries of life, until 1 and the children had all we wanted. Then 
1 had a bad illness, lost my voice, and with it my profession. 1 got 
a stray engagement for dumb parts, but so seldom that 1 could 
count the money 1 made in the year by farthings. Strive how we 
might, we got into debt, and he began to worry. He worked cruelly^ 
hard; he was always seeking extra work. He was so proud of our boy, 
Gerald, who is nearly twelve, and of our darling girls Florrie and 


16 


A WOMAls^’S LOVE-STOKY, 


Winnie. He would teach them when he w^as dead tired, or draghinif 
self up in the early morning to help Gerald with his studies. Alj 
this work, with the inward worry he tried to conceal, and did con- 
ceal from all but poor me, who loved him so, helped on the heart-- 
disease which, the doctors say, killed him. They had a post-morteik 
examination, and then they tried to comfort me by telling me that 
if he had not died of that he could not have lived long. Comfort! 
There is no comfort in earth or heaven for me till the All-mercifui 
lets me join my adored lost husband, as 1 know He will, if 1 try 
be father and mother both to our children he loved so dearly. How 
I shall do this 1 do not know. But a way will come — oh, yes, a 
way will come! A great sacrifice has been ofiered up, and help has 
been promised to those who will sin no more. You, sir, and every 
one thought we committed a tearful sin. If we did, we have paid 
heavily already, and it is a ray of sunshine in my gloom to remem- 
ber that at least my darling is spared further expiation. 1 will bear 
the rest. Trusting that you will be comforted in your grief at his 
loss, 

** 1 am your obedient and sorrowing 

“ Alicia Drew."' 

The Rector read the copy of “ Alicia Drew’s letter very care- 
fully, referring back again and again, till the squire, after wriggling 
and fidgeting, could no longer suppress his irritation, and blurted 
out — 

“ What d’ye think of a fellow who could dare send me that 
brazen-faced hussy’s humbug? A general indeed! Disgrace to the 
British forces — a blotch on the Union Jack! When 1 got the letter, 
1 wanted to be a Welshman, a Dutchman, a Greek, a— a—anjdhing 
but an Englishman!” he blustered, mopping his face with his huge 
silk handkerchief. “ 1 felt I’d have my epitaph written in a foreign 
language. Never was ashamed of being an Englishman before! 
Well?” — for the Rector was quietljq absently folding and refolding 
the letter. ” What d’ye say? Swear—- if it’ll do you good! Is not 
the letter blasphemy — the rankest blasphemy?” 

” 1 cannot see that the poor unfortunate wmman writes in a blas- 
phemous spirit,” said the Rector quietly. ”1 see a remorseful, a 
penitent soul, struggling to bear punishment.” 

” Bah!” cried the squire, so vehemently that the Rector’s wife and 
daughters started in the parlor and began to suspect that something 
serious had happened. ” Now understand, Rawson — you know I’m 
a good friend to you and yours, and you’re a good friend to me and 
mine; but we’re not parson-in -the pulpit and squire-in-the-pew this 
morning— we’re man and man. What’d you say if a man came 
and stole your cob but of the field yonder, or one of your sheep that 
1 passed in the three-acre turnip-field? They used to hang for sheep- 
stealing — a matter of a pound or so. What ought they to do for 
husband-stealing — to a creature who has ruined a sweet girl’s life — > 
my Lilian’s life — and sent her home with her child, begging shelter 
from her old father and mother? Why, hanging, drawing, and 
quartering’s too good for her!” 

“Yet One said, ‘ Let him who is without sin among you cast a 
stone — " ” 


A WOMA^r’S LOYE-STOKT. 17 

Yes— oil, yes, if you will quote the Gospel! Atid One said 
that, it a man’s cheek were smote, the man ought at once to turn his 
other cheek to be smote. But what 'ud you say to a public school- 
boy who had bis face slapped and didn’t oft with his jacket and claim 
fair fight there and then? What ’ud you saj^ to a man who wouldn’t 
kick a man who insulted his women-folk and give him ahorse-whip- 
pinir into the bargain? You’d say he was no man, and you’d be 
right! Right is righi, and wrong is wrong,” said the squire, bang- 
ing his fist upon the library table so noisily that the Rector’s wife and 
daughters in the next room, who had already composed themselves 
to listen, looked significantly at one another; ” and, if you, as a par- 
son in the pulpit or out of the pulpit, don’t say so, then— then— why, 
I’m ashamed of you, that’s all— I’m downright ashamed of you!” 

“And well you might' be,” said the Rector, with emotion, going 
across and laying his hand gently on the agitated old man’s shoul- 
der. “ If I said wrong was right, 1 should disgrace my profession, 
and should be that one alluded to— that it would be well for a mill- 
stone to be hung about his neck and be cast into the sea. But, 
while we reverence Heaven’s laws, we may still pity the law-break- 
ers— poor fools who rush to the bar of the Eternal Court of Justice. 
AYe should not be human were we not racked with pity for them, did 
■we not strain every nerve to help them through their just but terrible 
punishment, remembering fearfully that we might have been the 
same — ” 

“ Come, that’s loo much!” cried the squire, rising heavily from 
his chair and striking his riding-whip upon the floor. “ 1 don’t say 
that 1 was better than other young men in my day, nor woise. But, 
when 1 went of my own free will, and swore to cherish Dame at 
that communion-table in the parish church, 1 knew an oath was an 
oath, and begad i kept it! 1 don’t say as 1 haven’t chucked a 
chambermaid under the chin, nor kissed a rosy-cheeked gal or so 
under the mistletoe; but it’s all been fair and above-board, and in 
good part, and I’ve got no call to be ashamed of a chuck or a kiss 
— no, not one on ’em. And, if madam had had a spy-glass that 
could see right into my heart, she’d never have seen naught to fret 
her. So, w^hen a rogue coolly leaves my gal for a play-actress whose 
gallantries are public talk, 1 feel that 1 couldn’t even sully a sword 
of mine with his dirty blood. He’s only flt to be kicked into the 
pig-trough by the herd, and if you don’t feel the same, 1 pity' ye — 1 
pity ye— that’s all!” 

“ 1 feel as you would wish me to feel,” said the Rector, intercept- 
ing the squire as he turned to leave him. “ Come, old friend, w’hat 
can 1 do? Shall 1 break the new^s to dear Lilian?” 

The squire gradually allowed himself to be pacified. He had. 
come to ask the Rector to break the news of her husband’s death to 
Mrs. Drew; but he had many stipulations to make. 

“ Understand — no more of your Bible or your Gospel no w-~here!” 
he insisted. ' “ You’ll have me bound and at your mercy on Sunday 
morning, and then you may pepper me with it as long as you like, 
and 1 can’t say you nay.” 

Then he laid down his law, which was that Mis. Drew was to be 
told the bare fact of her husband’s death, and that his circumstances 
and position at the time of his death were to be suppressed. She 


18 


A woman’s love-story. 


was never to be told of the woman and her children, who were des- 
ignated by the squire in words that he would scarcely have used 
had ladies been present. 

The Rector listened, and shook his head. 

“ You yourself made me Lilian’s guardian in the event of your 
death,” he said resolutely; “and 1 am trustee ot her marriage-settle- 
ment. At least as her pastor, if not as her guardian and trustee, 1^ 
may be treated with confidence. No good ever came of the willful 
suppression of truth; of that I am so certain that nothing would in- 
duce me to keep one circumstance from Lilian. She is no child; in 
a few weeks sl^ will be thirty-four; 1 shall tell her all.” 

The squire argued, fumed; but the Rector was obstinate. 

“ Then you must jtake the consequences'!” said the squire, at last, 
flinging himself out of the room and out of tlie house. “ I shall 
not I It is madness, foolery — abject foolery!” 

“ 1 am ready to take the consequences,” said the Rector, offering 
to help the squire to mount the cob, which, as if he suspected his 
master's humor, stood meekly waiting at the garden gate, mute apol- 
ogy in his attitude. 

But the squire pettishly pushed aside Mr. Rawson’s helping hand, 
mounted, and rode off, without so much as a parting salute. 

The position was too serious for the Rector to feel afi^ronted; he 
went back thoughtfully to his study, locked himself in, read and re- 
read! the unfortunate woman’s letter, and pondered deeply, 

“ It is the most peculiar matrimonial situation that has come in 
my way,” he thought. “ How will she take it? One can never be 
sure wrhere women are concerned. She has not a passionate tem- 
perament, she know^s nothing of the throes and agonies of impulse. 
Perhaps, if she had been less equable, they would have got on 
together better— who knows? He was enthusiastic, but not frivolous 
— not bad exactly, 1 think — stormy and desperate rather, like his 
daughter Lilith. * Well, it is a shocking aftair — revolting— against 
precedent — difficult to deal with, and the worst is that it must be 
dealt with at once.” 

The Rector roused himself, and forced himself 1o resume his ser- 
mon; for that afternoon Lilian Drew must be told by him not only 
that she was actually a widow, but that her only child Lilith w^as 
not the only child of the dead Captain Drew. 


CHAPTER 111. 

The squire went off and rode about the estate to avoid meeting 
his daughter and Lilith at luncheon. The two had been .packing 
all the morning, assisted by their maid Mary, w^hile old ]\Iadam 
Ware had sat by, interested, making her little remarks and sugges- 
tions, and unselfishly subduing her heart-ache, the sadness she had 
struggled with since she knew that her darlings— who were her life’s 
sunshine — were going away from the Hall for an unlimited time. 

It was no unusual circumstance for the squire to be absent at 
luncheon, so his womenfolk were not concerned when he failed to 
appear. Lilith was to ride over to say good-by to her j^oung friends 


A woman’s love story. 19 

the Graliames at Withers Court — a great house about seven miles 
away. i>lrs. Drew watched her ride off; she was looking out of the 
paint! ug-room window. 

LilitiVs thin ungainly figure and high shoulders showed to disad- 
vantage on horseback; and, as she turned back to wave farewell to 
her mother with her riding-whip, there w^as such an apish look about 
her black eyes and irregular features under the shock of dark hair 
that Mrs. Drew was irresistibly reminded of the time when her fa- 
ther used to come in and noisily demand his “ papoose.” 

She turned avray and sat down with a sigh before her easel. The 
idea, the memory of her husband, filled her with gentle distress and 
a calm well-bred horror; yet she admired him as much in thought 
now as she did on the night of her introduction to him at a military 
ball, when he fell head over ears in love with the pretty fairy in 
white tulle dotted with real daisies, and she, all blushes and shrink- 
ing timidity, repelled and encouraged him at one and the same time. 

Yes, he had been her ideal of manly beauty. She had admired 
him when he used seemingly to fill their little drawing-room with 
his presence, standing there straight and tall in his uniform, draw- 
ing on his military gloves, his waving plume a fitting crown to his 
handsome features, as his valet buckled some loosened strap or ad- 
justed a spur. She admired him even more in evening-dress, and 
would glance at him with half-f earful appreciation when, tiled out, 
he sometimes fell asleep on the couch in her drawing-room. But 
her admiration was in some degree that which she would have given, 
to a glorious wild beast, a sleeping lion, a caged tiger. -Mrs. Drew 
was perplexed, if not frightened, by her husband’s stormy restless 
moods. To her he seemed always in extremes. She could not un- 
derstand him. 

The very recollection of him was disturbing. Now she deter- 
minedly put his image away out of her thoughts, and, sighing, re- 
sumed her brush. 

She was painting a miniature copy of a great artist’s representa- 
tion of the Master T)lessing the little children, as a parting gift to her 
old friend and pastor, Mr. Rawson.. The colors were mixed on her 
palette, and she was busily working away at one of the sweet child- 
faces, when Mary opened the door and announced the Rector him- 
self. 

” Now this is scarcely fair,” she said, with an amused little laugh. 
“You ought to have been taken to the drawing-room. No; 1 can’t 
shake hands. Don’t look at my pinafore! All my clean ones are 
packed. Lilith saj^s I look like a big bruise, all green, blue, and 
yellow patches. But now you must look at my little picture, a copy 
I have been doing for you to hang over your stuciy man tel -shelf, or 
any where else where you can find room. How do you like it?” 

Mr. Rawson murmured conventional words of approval. He 
hardly knew what he was talking about. He felt— there was no 
denying the fact — cowardly — nothing more or less than cowardly. 

It was a cruel task, a most unpleasant situation; and Mrs. Drew 
unconsciously made the position worse by her gentle gayety. As he 
stood listening to her prattle, it seemed to him that the tragic news 
he was burdened with was impossible, untrue, some hideous grim 
jest. 


20 . A woman’s love-story. 

Don’t look so grave over it,” said Mrs. Drew, sitting down be- 
fore the picture and looking back at him over her shoulder. “I 
will tell you why 1 painted this for you— because 1 have always felt 
that in your kindness to the weak, the desolate ” — her voice dropped 
— ” yo\i are so true a follower of the Master. Do you not think that 
the children here were symbolic, that they figured the tempted, the 
sinners, the unfortunate in life? 1 do. What-is the matter?” she 
added suddenlj^, for the Eector had paled to an ugly ashen gray as 
she spoke these words, which went home so cruelly. “ Dear Mr. 
Eawson, you are not well!” 

She paused suddenly; her spirits fell unaccountably. She sat 
down, not before the easel this time. 

” You have come with bad news,” she said slowly, huskily. It 
was an assertion, rather than an inquiry. 

‘‘1 have,” said the Rector desperately — ” 1 have; but 1 would 
rather tell you in the presence of your dear mother.” 

“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried. “Don’t you know how much 
worse it is to listen with others suffering? Thank Heaven Lilith is 
not here! Don’t mistake— 1 know what it is! He is dead!”— and 
she threw herself aside upon the arm of the little sofa she was sit- 
ting on, her head buried in her hands. . 

The Rector rose and laid his hand gently upon her head. But she 
jerked it away with a “ Don’t speak!” So he stood, gazing silently 
at her motionless figure, wondering almost stupidly how he was to 
tell the rest of his tale. 

Presently she raised her face, flushed, tearful. 

“ He did not— kill— himself?” she asked. 

“ Thank Heaven — no!” 

Lilian’s head went down upon her folded arms again. How 
curious it all was, he thought — the gay furniture of the little room, 
the easel, the paintings and sketches, the sunshine pouring in upon 
the stained floor, the faint sound of blown and rustling blanches, of 
a triumphant hen cackling her success in the poultry -yard, of serv- 
ants’ laughter and gossip! 

The rector had seldom had the incongruities of human life forced 
so roughly upon him. 

“ He did not kill himself. Was it— a duel?” 

As Mrs. Drew asked her piteous question, the Rector seated him- 
self near her. She stretched out her hands to him, as a frightened 
child might; and, gently and soothingly grasping those poor trem- 
bling hands, he told his tale, avoiding the mention of Lilian’s rival 
as much as possible. 

“ She was— with him — when— it happened?” asked Mis. Drew. 

Mr. Rawson bowed his head. 

“lam glad!” she sighed. “I felt, when they went away, that 
he would be happier — she would understand him; 1 never could!” 

The Rector felt slightly embarrassed. This was a curious case. 
As Mrs. Drew had absolutely ignored her marital woes all these 
years, people had almost begun to forget her position of deserted 
wife, and to looR upon the affair more as one of those mutual 
separations by consent which were the business of none except those 
immediately concerned. Even the Rector could not guess whether 
Lilian Drew hated the man who hAd forsaken her, or whether she 


A ' womak’s love-story. 


21 


had forgiven him, or was indeed indifferent to the handsome captain 
who had once said *‘ 1 will so heartily in response to his inquiry 
from the communion-rails of -Heathside parish church. 

Now, when she spoke thus, he fell startled. She was glad her 
rival was with him when he died! Was this the extreme of mag- 
nanimity, or was it self-reproach? 

He seated himself near her. He did not know what to say. She 
was gazing sadly, absently at the open window, where the green 
chestnut- boughs outside waved against a bright bine sky. 

“ He was — he looked so strong,’’ she said, in low awed tones. 
“ 1 could hot have believed — he would die — so young. And 1 — 1 
never said, ‘ Heaven bless you!’ How hard! He would have liked 
that. I am sure at the last he thought of me— of Lilith. Oh, poor 
Lilith, your father is dead!” Her head went down again; she 
sobbed. The self-contained ]VIrs. Drew had broken down as com- 
pletely as the weakest, the most emotional of her sex. 

“ Lilian, you are a downright good woman, and Heaven will re- 
ward you, ’’"said the Rector feelingly. “ How ever that poor fellow 
could leave you so heartlessly is a mystery to me.” 

“It is no mystery to me, Mr. Hawson,” rejoined Mrs. Drew, 
struggling to regain her composure. “ Do you mind listening? 
No? Then 1 will tell you exactly how it was. When 1 met Regi- 
nald, I was very young — only just out. He dazzled me; his court- 
ship seemed too wonderful to be true. It was all a fairy tale, and 
my one feeling was that 1 must wake up and find our engagement a 
dream. No one offered any objections, as you know. His father 
and my parents allowed a short engagement — he was so impetuous, 
few could resist him. 1 had not recovered from my bewilderment 
at this sudden strange fate which had come to me when 1 found 
myself married, the obedient subject of this winning, attractive, ex- 
citable man. Strong? He did not seem to know what fatigue 
meant. Our honeymoon was spent in a rapid race through Europe. 
We were up at dawn, seeing sun-rises, then rushing through pict- 
ure-galleries and churches till 1 was breathless and almost brainless 
with the hurry and flurry. 1 found out that, if 1 did not take an 
active part in all that he was interested in, he was disappointed, dis- 
gusted. So I concealed my exhaustion as far as 1 could, intending 
to recruit my strength when we got home. Fallacy! Home was 
worse. He was bored, and looked to me to amuse him. He was 
much at home, and he was fond of playing the lover, and would 
expect to lounge about with me, and have long copversations on his 
favorite subjects, long lovers’ talks, when 1 saw he expected me to 
be not only poetically passionate, but to exalt his already exalted 
ideas. 1 soon learned that intellectually he was far above me; I also 
learned the bittei truth that he had lo'^ed, wooed, and won an ideal 
woman, not me— ordinary, commonplace Lilian Ware. My health 
gave way. The doctor said 1 must on no account keep late hours. 
But all our friends gave entertainments in our honor, and I literally 
dared not stay away. 1 also dared not show how ill I felt, tor noth- 
ing irritated him so much as, my looking pale and tired, poor fel- 
low! He used to try hard to give me pleasure. He would surprise 
me with boxes for the Opera or the theaters, which 1 had to thank 
him for as if 1 liked them. Liked them ? Sometimes 1 would faint 


3:3 A woman’s love-stoey. 

when 1 was dressing; 1 fought faintness in the hot atmospheres. 
Once 1 did faint away quietly in my chair, and recovered to find 
hini thoroughly out of temper, saying, ‘ Everything I do to try to- 
please you is a failure,’ et-cmtera^ ei-cmtera. Do j^ou not see that he 
was right from his point of view?” said Mrs. Drew, pausing as she 
saw a frown on the Rector’s brow. 

He hesitated a moment; then he said — 

” Your husband was a selfish man.” 

“ Then 1 was a selfish woman,” returned Mrs. Drew — “ you will 
hear. The very next day after my faintness at the Opeia he offered 
to leave me at home. There was a great dinner-party at General 
Somebody’s. I could hardly believe in my good fortune. I exerted 
myself to he bright and lively till he had^one; then 1 went to bed. 
flow thankful i wasl It was like a reprieve! But 1 see now how 
wrong I was to give way to passing sensations of weakness. His 
going out alone led to his rejoining his bachelor friends, his old fast 
set. These reproached him with having an invisible wife, a useless 
companion, as single men will rally their married friends. He as- 
sumed the character of the careless husband, the man who had made 

hariage de convenance, and had merely been keeping up appear- 
ances— how false this pretense was 1 know only loo well! Mr. 
Rawson, 1 am incapable of feeling an infatuation such as his was 
for me. Well, his boon companions took him at his word. There 
were the old racketings— orgies.. 

” Then he began to have a craze for theater-going. As 1 began 
to recover my strength, 1 asked him to take me to see — to see 
Mrs. Drew shivered — ” a new actress people were raving about. 
Oh, how well 1 remember that scene! He was standing with his 
back to me— he remained as if turned to stone. 1 thought he could 
not have heard me, and asked him again. 

” He inquired, leaning his elbow on the mantel-shelf and his fore- 
head on his arm, if 1 really meant it. His voice sounded stifled and 
odd; and 1 at once thought, with a pang of self-repioach, that he 
had felt my want of interest in his pleasures very keenly. I repeat- 
ed warmly that 1 was longing to see this lovely creature that people 
seemed so wild about. 

” ‘ Very well,’ he said, in the same dull, strange way. 

” That very night he brought me a box for the theater. 1 think 
1 never admired anything or anybody so much as 1 did that woman. 
She was delicate and small, but her majesty of movement, her grace, 
her passion, the deep grave sweetness of her voice, accounted for all 
the public enthusiasm. One of my^ husband’s friends, who came 
into the box and devoted himself to me with a curious sort of apolo- 
getic respect, assured me, while Reginald was out of the box, that 
it was a settled fact that Miss Elvin would shortly become Duchesa 
of Perth. He seemed very anxious that 1 should accept a rumor 1 
was not at all disinclined to believe— for, innocently enough, 1 told 
my husband when we were at home again that, if Nature had 
planned a queen, it was this beautiful actress. 

” He was sulkily silent; then, with an outburst of passion, he took 
me in his arms, kissed me frantically, and as frantically flung me 
from him. Luckily 1 fell on a sota> meanwhile he had gone off^ 


A WOMA^h'S loye-stoky. 23 

tind 1 did not sec him again till the next morning, when he was all 
tender penitence tor his roughness. 

“ ‘ But 1 must ask one thing,' he said, in a vehement restless way 
— ‘ that you won't speak to me again, Lilian, as you did last night.' 

“Fool that I was— even then I had no suspicion! Lilith was 
horn — yes, and Lilith was some months old before I knew. 

“ Reginald had sell led down into a calm, common sort of good 
humor. There were no more transports or rages, tor which 1 was 
stupidly thankful. He accepted Lilith's ugliness — yes; and 1 do 
believe he was fond of his * papoose,' as he used, to call her. But he 
was blinded by passion — poor fellow, he did not make his passions! 
Ah, don't look like that, Mr. Rawson— only Heaven can judge! 

“ Well, one day, when 1 was nursing Lilith, Reginald’s colonel 
called. There was nothing strange in that. Colonel and Mrs. 
Wood often came, and Mrs. Wood had been most kind in sending 
me jellies and things when I was laid up. No; it was only the 
colonel's manner which made me think that something was wrong. 
He was a small man, with pale red hair and a white skin. He sat 
drawing his gloves on and off, looking at his white blue-veined hands 
as if he admired them, and' nervously blinking and winking his 
large white eyelids till 1 almost laughed. Suddenly he stammered 
out something about this actress. 

“ ‘ Is it true that you have seen her?’ *he asked. 

“ Of course 1 said ‘ I'es,' and 1 added much about her fascination 
of face, figure, speech, and manner until he colored, and abruptly 
cut me short by saying — 

“ ‘ Of course you have not seen her lately?’ 

“ 1 told him when it was. He seemed puzzled, worried, and em- 
barrassed; then he began to talk of the object of his visit. He 
began about people's wicked habit of scandalizing and backbiting 
others. None could escape; sometimes the most wicked lies were 
told about persons who were as pure and spotless as the very angels 
themselves. This being the case, he would not conceal from me 
that my husband's name had been coupled with that of the popular 
actress Miss Elvin. 

“ ‘ Oh, dear,* 1 said— -and 1 laughed so heartily that the kaby 
Lilith laughed too — ‘that is very funny! Only a little while ago 
Major Black ^aid that the day was fixed for her marriage with the 
Duke of Perth. My husband — a married man too! How he will 
laugh!’ 

“ The colonel at once bound me to silence where m.y husband was 
concerned. He assured me that what he said was strictly confiden- 
tial; he left it to my honor not to repeat what he had said. 

“ ‘ I have actually committed a breach of honor in your interest, 
Mrs. Drew,' he said, in great agitation. ‘ You are in duty bound to 
stand by me. ' 

“ 1 assured him that my husband and I had no secrets from each 
other — that this concealment would be the first cloud in our mar- 
riage sky. 

“ The colonel stared: then he winced and wiiggled and mumbled 
something about the beauty of confidence between husband and 
wife, how exceptional it was, and how glad he was to find such a 
striking instance of so rare a state of affairs. At the same time he 


24 


A woman’s love-story. 

advised me for my liusband’s sake to use my influence to persuade 
liim to chan.^e to a certain regiment about to leave England. 

“ ‘ Malta is not a bad climate/ be said. VAh, Mrs. Drew, 1 cau 
rend in your face that you tbinTs me a presuming meddler ! But 
don’t,’ be went on pleadingly; ‘ 1 beg and entreat you not to disre- 
gard my advice. W e all like you and your liusband, and wish so 
very, very much to see you safely out of barm’s way — scandal, I 
mean. Now have patience with me, and, it any complications 
should arise, remember that my wife and 1 are ready to serve you 
both— night or day.’ ” 

Toward the end of her story Mrs. Drew’s voice bad faltered. As 
she repeated the good colonel’s words, she looked away; then she 
added, with short dry sobs — 

“ The next time 1 saw — the colonel, he had come to tell me they 
were gone.” 

“ And to day I have come to tell you that the man you excuse 
with such — such exlraordinary generosity — a man who broke his 
marriage- vow as iightly as he would snap a 1 bread — a man who 
ruined two women for a passing whim — is dead,” said the Rector. 
“ Before now eternal justice has judged him once and tor all. It is 
not tor a weak mortal liKe myself to comment upon his short life. 
Heaven is just! You, the injured one, are safe from the bitter fut- 
ure which awaits the wretched woman who tempted your husband.” 

“What?” Mrs. Drew looked at him with piercing inquiry. 
“ Tell me — all. 1 can bear it — indeed 1 can! Do you know,” she 
said, with a faint smile, wearily pushing back her smooth fair hair, 
“ 1 really do not think 1 feel as keenly as other people. 1 have seen 
my father, my husband — yes, and Lilith— rage and fret over things 
vrhich 1 should have thought to be absurd trifles. 1 have felt 
grieved, oppressed, unhappy; but I don’t know the sensations ‘cut 
to the quick, ’ ‘ pierced to the very soul,’ and those things. You 
may talk to me just as you like; you need not spare me as you 
would others. ” 

The Rector hesitated. He had not intended to place the woman's 
letter in the hands of Captain Drew’s lawful wife. But he had felt 
so indignant while Lilian was defending her dead husband’s sin — 
had felt such a species of impatient wonder how it was that good- 
for-nothing fellows, without a conscience, without a trace of moral 
stamina, were loved, petted, forgiven, and after death apotheosized 
by their womenfolk, while honest good men were so often worried, 
teased, ^nubbed, and, when gone, considered a good riddance— that 
his courage suddenly lose, and, before he quite realized the step he 
had taken, he had silently handed Mrs. Drew her rival’s letter. 

“ That will explain all,” he said; then, with a qualm, he walked 
away from Lilian and stood looking out at the window. 

It seemed an age that he listened to the rustling of the flimsy let- 
ter-paper. Mrs. Drew must be reading the letter again and again. 
What would be the effect upon her? Would she sob and wail as he 
had seen women do, or would she turn against the memory of tha: 
man? 

He did not wonder long. There was a tap on his arm. Mrs. 
Drew’s face was paler and drawn; but her eyes were alight with de- 
termination. 


25 


A ^’OiTAX’S LOVE-STORY. 

This is most important,” she said. “ It is terrible!” She leaned 
her arms on the window-sill, and looked but with an intent search- 
ins? gaze. She could not have told what it was she saw, although 
her eyes wandered over the sunlit slopes and seemed to dwell upon 
each full-blossomed tree that cast its shadow on the leddening corn 
or on the tall grass in the hay-fields. She was mentally reviewing 
her duties — her hard stern duties — that paraded themselves unflinch- 
ingly before their firm yet gentle captain. 

“You know the general has literally nothing — at least, so little 
that it is nothing tor a man in his position — besides his pension,” 
she said, as it continuing her thoughts aloud. “ What will they do 
— starve? Oh, Mr. Rawson, he can never for one moment have ex- 
pected this— have dreamed of his dying! It is so horrible!” she 
said, lowering her voice and laying her hand upon his sleeve. 
“ Y^ou understand? It seems so unnatural that Lilith should have 
a brother and sisters — his children, but not mine! And those poor 
things — why, 1 am their step-mother! Yet 1 am not— oh, what a 
confusion!” 

“ My dear, pray do not let us disgrace ourselves by such a discus- 
sion,” put in the Rector, in dismay. “ I do not know what 1 can 
have been thinking of to show you that woman’s letter. You must 
not talk or think about it — you must not indeed. Your father will 
he justly angry with me. 1 promise you 1 will see that these per- 
sons are provided for by those they have a claim upon.. They have 
not the faintest shadow of a claim upon you — less than Hagar and 
Ishmael had upon Sarah — ” 

“Stop!” said Mrs. Drew decidedly. “That Bible stoiy could 
not have been told after the life of the Master. . 1 have lived after 
Him. 1 have to follow Him in my poor little way through anguish, 
agony, and death. But we all deserve to suffer, and He did not. 
Oh, Mr. Rawson, don’t think 1 should not enjoy hating those peo- 
ple! That very fact is the reason I must watch my conduct toward 
them as 1 would watch a suspected person.” 

“lam not going to allow you to be quixotic and wrong-headed — 
yes, wrong-headed,” said the Rector, surprised, and still more in dis- 
may. “ You must do nothing without consulting ihe, and proba- 
bly your father. ’ ’ 

“ There is Lilith!” cried Mrs. Drew. “ Oh, my Lilith! How lit- 
tle she knows — dreams — Now, Mr. Rawson, 1 have never yet 
spoken to Lilith about her father, nor do 1 intend; but 1 intend to 
place the situation before her, and 1 tell you 1 shall be guided by 
her impressions. Y’'ou are prejudiced. Don’t deny it; you must 
be; your duty as my trustee is to see that 1 am righted. But Lilith 
— oh, she has such a simple upright soul! She goes straighten 
through obstacles, if only she feels justified. There is her step in 
the passage.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

Lilith opened the door, shut it, and then stood there in her riding- 
habit. 

“ So you are here,” she said abruptly to the Rector. “ Mother, 
you' are troubled about something. Is it grandpapa? 1 met him in 


26 


A womak’s love-story. 

five-acre field. He looked bad; but really 1 think it is only the hay- 
machine/’ she added, looking closely and suspiciously at her moth- 
er. “He had been greatly put out about it. They had brou’ght it 
up alongside, and there it was steaming away at the corner of the 
hay- field, with them all standing round, staring at it as it consider- 
ing wdiether the hay was to brought to it or it taken to the hay. It 
was enough to annoy grandpapa. But he is down stairs now ; and 
Barnes has brought him up some cold beet and some Burton No, L 
He’ll torget all about the machine presently. 

The Rector gave a side-glance at Mrs. Drew, wondering how she 
would open fire; she did not wait long. 

“ Lilith dear, the Rector has come to tell us that one of our dearest 
relatives, by marriage, is dead,” she said slowly. 

“ Any one 1 know?” interrogated Lilith, fixing her searching 
eyes, afier one stvift glance at her mother, upon the Rector, as if she 
not only knew as much as he did, but a great deal more. 

“ It is not a friend,” began Mr. Rawson hesitatingly. “ You— 
you do not know’ — 1 mean ha^e not recently seen him.” 

“ Then it is an enemy?” 

“ My dear child, ask your mother.” 

“ 1 could have told you, without asking her, that an enemy was 
dead,” said Lilith, taking off her hat. “ She looks it. You want 
to know why? Then you haven’t felt hate. Somebody I hated 
once died — well — suddenly — all deaths seem sudden. 1 shall never 
forget it — all my unkind thoughts and sayings seemed to shower 
down and burn into me. 1 would have given anything to turn them 
into sw^eet words: but that can't apply to you, dearest,” she said,, 
with tender fervor, going to her mother, kneeling down, and kissing 
her hands. “ Mother can say telling things that go home to you, 
Mr. Rawson; but unkind— she couldn’t be that if she tried. So, 
mother dear, you needn’t tret over this man’s death — I think you said 
it was a man?” she added, with a glance back at the Rector which 
was not absolutely free from suspiciousness. 

“Yes,” answ^ered the Rector seriously. 

“ It is a man, Lilith,” said her mother, “ who has died and left 
young helpless relatives, alone, poor, without any one to care for 
them.” 

“ They have no claim whatever upon 3 mur mother, Lilith,” began 
the rector eagerly. “ And I have been preaching to her that she 
must really not be quixotic, and shower benefits upon unworthy 
pemons.” 

Lilith shrugged her shoulders impatiently. They were treating 
her as if she were a baby. Yet she had suspected, fiom the moment 
her sharp eyes caught sight of the black- edged envelope the squire 
thrust into his pocket at the breakfast- table, that the mysterious fa- 
ther who must not be mentioned, but who lived in her memory as 
some striking beautiful dream might have lived, had gone into the 
silent land where neither words, thoughts, nor feelings could reach 
him. From the instant she confronted those two — the Rector and 
her mother — the suspicion became a certainty. 

“ Hare these people no one to help — to support them?” she asked 
the^ Rector, in the rough abrupt way which people so particularly 
disliked in “ that ugly girl, the squire’s grandchild.” 


27 


A WOMANS ‘S LOA^E- STORY. 

“ That 1 shall make it m}^ business to find out/’ said the Rector. 

IS or will I leave a stone unt urned, Lilith, to find responsible per- 
sons to prevent your mother from squandering he” savings, as 1 see 
she has a mind to do.” 

Th(m he took his leave, feeling, as he rode home, that, if ever a 
man had bungled over a delicate piece of business, he was that man. 

*• But a foreknowledge of woman was absolutely necessary,” he 
mentally acknowledged to himself; “ and that I certainly have not. 
1 never expected Lilian to take the news in that way. AVho would 
have expected it? And as tor Lilith — she is not like a girl. She is 
uncanny — posltivelj^ uncanny!” 

Meanwhile Mrs. Drew had delicately placed the situation —at least 
in part — before her daughter. Were it her plain duty to help her 
husband’s children, their scheme of going to London inust be given 
up. There would be a sacrifice. Breaking the contract with the 
owner of the London house would bring compensation to him, as 
well as the loss of the premium paid. But there would still be the 
remainder of Mrs. Drew’s savings, and these would go to help the 
unfortunate family. Lilith asked no questions; but she entirely 
approved her mother’s generosity. 

” As for my visit to towm, that can wait,” she said cheerfully. 
” 1 dare say it is all for the best. This next year’s study ot nature 
may help me on more than all the other years put together. 1 have 
felt lately that 1 have seen more in nature than 1 ever saw before — 
that my eyes are just beginning to open. Other studies can wait.” 

And she gallantly supported her mother’s sacrificial plans. The 
girl clung to duty as to a rock. With all and through alljlier wild 
dreams ot life, ot the world around their little secluded bower, there 
was a feeling of insecurity, of danger. When she disliked her 
duties, yet faithfully did them, she felt safer. That feeling of safety 
led her to subdue her violent nature, to plod on quietly, instead of 
storming through life like a whirlwind. It helped her to be patient. 
Lilith’s patience was a dangerous sort of patience; people suspected 
3t. That quiet acceptance of ordinary life, those quiet manners, 
were like the smooth exterior of a bomb shell, the sloping grassy 
sides ot a volcanic hill. There were nine hundred and ninety-nine 
chances that the latent explosives would remain latent. But there 
was the ugly thousandth chance that they ^vould not. And people 
had an uncomfortable feeling, when they saw^ Lilith’s fierce eyes, 
that she might treat them to an outbreak of some sort, and that the 
outbreak would not be pleasant. 

After her talk with her mother, Lilith went into the shrubbery. 
She sought a quiet favorite nook. There w^as a small stone obelisk 
on a grassplot; green with the damp, for thick yews stood close to- 
gether around, and their tough branches crossed each other over- 
head, and tall elms towered above these, so that few sun-rays ever 
glinted upon the verses inscribed upon the obelisk — verses Lilith 
knew by heart, that began — 

“ Far from the busy haunts of men.” 

This cool twilight scarcely ever failed to calm her. Now she fled 
hither with various emotions raging. Lilith had to struggle just 
now against wind and tide. 


28 


A WOMAKS LOVE-STORY. 

“ He is dead— of that l am absolutely certain,” she said, leaning 
against a yew-trunk and folding her long arms upon her chest. 

What did she remember of iiim? Merry laughter, caresses, and 
her fingers clasped in his hair— some perfume too, and kisses. As 
she thought back, these impressions grew stronger. No distinct 
face or form would stand out — it was all dim; but these sensuous-, 
impressions awakened a feeling — half longing, half bitter regret — 
as the hungry feel who awake to find their vision-banquets a cheat 
of Nature, or the poverty-stricken, ’who have reveled in gold and 
jewels in their dreams, awaken, still social criminals, paupers. 

“ Why did he leave us?” was her bitter cry. All these years she 
had been fatherless. Her grandfather had been good; but still there ^ 
had been an emptiness, a void. And once sheiiad found a pencil- 
sketch of her father, asleep, drawn by her mother. Such a face 
and head— so noble, with such a sweet expression on the sleeping 
face! She had crept away, and had indulged in a wild fit of crying. 
Then she fancied there might be a chance of her paients “ making 
up.” 

Now there was none — none; he was dead! Her mother had told 
her that these near relatives of their mutual near relative had been 
dearly loved by the dead man. 

“ And they have nothing; they depended upon him,” she said. 
“If he knew they were destitute, starving, his poor dead body 
might well turn in its grave!” 

The words impressed Lilith’s imagination. Now, as she stood by 
the yew-tree, she imagined her father’s still white features as he lay 
stiff and straight in his grave. Then there seemed a dead silence, 
till out of it came heart-broken sobs and wailings— the voices loved 
by the poor helpless dead crying to him, till his life came faintly 
back, and he writhed in agony. It was an awful picture that con- 
fronted the young artist’s mind; but she bore its presence bravely, 
only crying mentally — 

“ Best, poor soul! 1 swear that these who cry out shall be mine. 

I will share with them — 1 will see that they do well; but do not 
come to me like this! 1 pray Heaven to bless you!” 

The species of vision was gone. Lilith felt chill; she rubbed her 
eyes, whi^h seemed stiff and filmy; then she went back thought- 
fully to tne house, and into the library. Here she wrote to Mr. 
Rawson. 

“My dear Godfather,—! quite agree with my mother that 
these helpless people are dependent upon us and nothing would 
induce me to accept now the tiniest trifle paid for by mother’s sav- 
ings. These savings, like any one else’s savings, belong by right to 
those who have never had anything to save. This is my Commun- 
ism, which you have so often laughed at me for; but what a privi- 
lege it is tor those who have saved money by denying themselves 
things, as mother has! IVJ other said that she told you she meant to 
take my advice because 1 was so ignorant. She thoroughly believes 
in the * babes and sucklings ’ text. Love to dear Mrs. Rawson, Kate 
and Moll, from your aftectionate godchild, Lil.” 

A man on horseback took the letter. The Rector met him in the 


A WOMA?^*S LOYE- STORY. 29 

lane, and read Lilith’s letter as he walked his cob along the heavy 
wagon-rats under the spreading elms. 

He had seldom been so near a round honest oath. . As he took oft‘ 
his soft bat, ruffled his snowy hair, and resentfully banged his head- 
gear down upon his head again, the temptation to call himself a 
deuced fool was almost irresistible. 

“1 — 1 have no worldly wisdom whatever, he said, v' 1 meant 
well ; but this business is immoral — simply immoral. ” 

He thought hard during his ride about the parish. The Gospel, 
as explained by him to the sick and aged that day, was a very stern 
Gospel indeed. He knew that it behooved him to be stern, for he felt 
as if sin had been running a race with him, and that sin had won. 

“ 1 will talk to Mary about it,” was his final determination. He 
wished he had asked his wife’s advice at first. 

Mrs. Rawson was a pleasant plump little woman, thrifty, a good 
housekeeper and manager, and kind to her husband’s poor and sick. 
She herself had been a clergyman’s daughter, and had lived through 
rectory life before, which perhaps accounted for the total absence 
of glamour about her notions of ministering life. She was intensely 
practical, and so accurately just in her metings out of food, cloth- 
ing, or other help to claimants tor rectory bounty, that on occasion 
the Rector had been knowm to plead himself on behalf of some case 
which had touched his heart. ” But,” as Mrs. Rawson warned her 
daughters, ” my dears, it is the greatest possible mistake to be lavish 
to a single case, when a dozen others far more deserving may crop 
up immediately afterward, and we should have nothing to give 
them.” She was so determined to be a just steward that, when the 
Rector came to her as she sat in her little parlor at needlework, flick- 
ing his riding wiiip and pacing about in an embarrassed absent way, 
she set her lips firmly and stitched away in a vigorously-resolved 
manner which boded ill for sentiment. 

” My dear, 1 w'ant your advice,” began the Rector, sitting down 
at the little dining- table opposite to his wife and her huge work- 
basket. 

“ If it is about that miserable old man who will go on living in 
that damp nut, and will not go into the Union, 1 have only to repeat 
what 1 have said before, ” said Mrs. Rawson, unreeling fcr thread 
with a jerk. _ ” It is most unjust of him to take money from that 
poor pale thing, his daughter, with all those cbildren and that rough 
brute of a husband. 1 feel sure that husband of hers beats her 
whenever she ekes out anythiirg for that selfish old lather. It isn’t 
as if the Union was a miserable hole, instead of a well-built build- 
ing slandinn high and dry, with a south aspect for the old people’s 
rooms, and beds of flowers and rolled graveled walks for them to 
look at.” 

“ It is not old Healey 1 wanted to speak to you about,” said the 
Rector, drumming his fingers on thetaffle. “ Y’ou and I differ about 
the workhouse, so 1 should not talk to you about it. Every timo 
an honest old fellow who has known better daj^s, and has strug- 
gled and done his best, has to acknowledge that "be is beaten, and 
goes upon the parish, my heart aches; for 1 know that such things 
ought not to be, and 1 can do nothing. No; I wanted your advice 
about Mrs. Drew and Lilith. Captain Drew is dead.” 


80 A WOJIAIf’s LOVE STOET. 

” What a blessed riddance! But his death— it was not so disrepu- 
table as his lite? He had left, that woman?” 

“ Ko, lie had not,” said the Rector; and then he rrpidly told his 
tale, up to the point where he broke the news to the widow, Mrs. 
Drew. 

The work dropped from Mrs. Rawson’s hands; she stared at her 
husband almost incredulously. 

“Ko wonder the poor old squire talked so loud this moiningl” 
she remarked. “ No wonder, poor old man, he staggered out and 
rode away without so much as a look at any ot us! But how the 
general should have brought himself to send that — that shocking 
creature’s letter to the squire — that 1 cannot understand; he must be 
either mad or lost to all sense of shame.” 

” What ought he to have done then?” asked the Rector. His wife 
was throwing an unexpected light upon the subject. 

“ Done? Why, destroyed the indecent letter, and have said noth- 
ing about the way he heard of his son’s death to any one!’' 

” But those victims — the children?” 

“ We cannot alter the laws of the Almighty, although some of us 
are arrogant enough to wish to do so on occasion,” said Mrs. Raw- 
son, recovering from her shock of surprise, and resuming the hem- 
ming of one of the dark cotton pinafores which she had introduced 
as a species of badge or uniform for the National School girls. 
“ How often have I heard my dear father refer to that text about 
the sins of the father being visited on the children — ” 

” You would make the Almighty out worse than a Nero!” said 
the Rector, springing up from his chair, and from that moment 
siding heart and soul with Lilian Drew and her peculiar child 
Lilith. “ Pray, may 1 ask what you would have done, in Lilian 
Drew ’s case, when you read that letter?” 

Why. you don’t mean to say that that poor dear heard anything 
about that letter?” said the shocked Mrs.-Rawson. “ What — who 
could forget himself to that extent? Not the squire!” 

“My clear, 1 placed the letter in Mrs. Drew’s hands myself,” 
answered the Rector ; and then he talked on, explaining his opinions 
about the truth, how it should be told when necessary, unpalatable 
or not. , 

Mrs. Rawson, after a choke and a gasp, found breath to answer 
her husband’s question, as to w^hat she would have done in Mrs. 
Drew’s position. 

“Done?” she indignantly exclaimed. “Why, have considered 
your conduct a desperate insult! Have forgiven you in secret — at 
least, tried to; but you would not have seen or spoken to me in a 
hurry!” 

“ But the woman and her children?” 

“Put them out of my mind us soon as possible -forget that such 
creatures ever existed, if 1 could.” 

“ You would not devote the careful savings of years to educate 
and keep the children as their dead father struggled to educate and 
keep them, 1 suppose?” 

“ 1 do not think such a dreadful thing a matter to jest upon,” said 
Mrs. Rawson severely. 

“ Oh, you prefer earnestness, Mary? You shall have it,” said 


A WO^IAN^S LOVE-STORY, 31 

the Eector, who was strangely chilled and pained by bis wile’s 
words. “ Although 1 don’t think you will like to hear this bit of 
truth, you, my wife, are Interior in heart ,and soul to Lilian Drew 
and her daughter Lilith.” 

And he seized his riding-whip, and went out to cogitate how 
Lilith could go to London with the least expense and the greatest 
safety. 

“ For the child must have her strict dues,” he delermined. 

Mrs. Rawson felt hurt at her husband’s reproach. 

“ He ought not to have chosen me if he did not approve of my 
ideas of right and wrong,” she proudly assured herself. 

She considered it below her dignity to give any hint of the state 
of affairs at Heathside Hall to her daughters. She only said almost 
jealously to Kate, who wrote little tales and verses for children’s 
magazines — 

” 1 wish you would persuade your father to write, Kate. Oh, 1 
don’t mean because of any addition to his income! It is because he 
has the-poelical temperament, and that is such a fatal drawback to 
a clergyman’s life, which should be logical, practical, unless the 
poetry flows from his mind harmlessly through its proper channels 
— pen and ink.” 


CHAPTER V. 

The Rector had two sisters living in that quaint part of London 
which lies about and around King Square. King Square was large 
and open, with a broad road encircling the big square garden; but 
Prince’s Square, which lay behind it, had tall brick mansions with 
long narrow windows which had been built in Queen Anne’s time. 
Here lived Mr. Rawson ’s sisters — Mrs. Law, who had inarried her 
husband, now an infirm old gentleman, late in life, and' Mrs. Mac- 
donald, a widow with one son. 

Mrs. Law was the lady of the house, and to Mrs. Law the Rector 
wrote to inquire whether any lady of her acquaintance would con- 
sent to take charge of Lilith Drew for a few months. 

” You may have seen the death of Captain Drew in the papers,” 
he wrote. ” This does not make any pecuniary difference to MrSi 
Drew, who has money in her own right, and is Squire Ware’s sole 
heiress; but it puts an end to Mrs. Drew’s taking a house in town.” 

The Rector did not hint that his sisters might like to invite Lilith; 
but he thought there was just a possibility that it might occur to 
them to do so. And, as the days went on and no reply to his letter 
arrived, he augured well from the delay. 

One morning came a letter from Mrs. Macdonald. She excused 
” dear .Judith’s ” silence. Mr. Law had had one of his severe at- 
tacks, and Mrs. Law had enough to do to nurse him. 

‘‘ We have been deeply interested in your young friend,” wrote 
Mrs. Macdonald— “ especially dear Judith, w’ho used to paint flowers 
so beautifully. Judith thinks Miss Drew very young to handle the 
brush— she will doubtless have to undergo severe training with the 
pencil. However, in any case, Judith says that, if poor dear Mrs. 
Drew will trust her daughter to us, .she will do everything in her 
power to direct and counsel her. Miss Drew must expect to find it 


S2 A womak’s love-story. 

dull here with three old folk. However, my maid Eliza will quite 
like taking her out for walks, and I dare say Willie will try to find 
time to play a game of chess with her in the evenings.” 

Altogether the letter produced the impression of having been 
written in one of those square lofty rooms in Prince’s Square, with 
the caiwed ceilings all flying Cupids holding flow^er-festoons, with the 
gilt bow-legged drawing-room chairs diawn up close to the pale 
; walls, and the liny tables and the old square piano equally slim and 
spiky in the matter of supports. It breathed old-fashioned prim- 
' ness— but old fashioned kindliness, thought the Rector, who thrust 
; it into his breast-pocket. He w^as resolved not to speak to his wife 
about the Drews again; but he, intended to ride over to the Hall 
: with Mrs. Macdonald’s lett^ directly after breakfast. 

He found Lilith and her"mother in the painting-room. They had 
j)ainted vigorously while troublous thoughts and strange griefs were 
agitating their minds. Mrs. Drew expected to see the Rector, who 
was employing his solicitors to make all necessary inquiries about 
“ Alicia Drew,” as she called herself, and her children; and, as he 
came in, she looked up quickly, nervously — for, calmly as she be- 
haved outwardly, there was terrible bitterness in her heart. Each 
' time she discussed these persons who were so curiously introduced 
in her quiet life she felt as if a wound were opened afresh, and, 
W’hen she walked across the church-yard, she almost envied I hose 
. who lay under the tender grass and little white daisies. So each 
time the Rector brought no news she felt relieved;* and on this day 
she looked up with a smile and showed him her sketches. 

“ Now you must look at Lilith’s,” she said. ” I feel myself such 
a pigmy beside Lilith. ” 

They walked to Lilith’s easel She was hard at work, with her 
j^lack brows knit. She was biting her under-lip — her hair wns a 
shock of black ” friz.” She made a gesture to them to wait; then 
she settled herself upon her high chair and dabbed her brush rest- 
lessly first on the palette and then on her canvas. 

Mrs. Drew and the Rector stepped aside. 

” I cannot understand the way Lilith works, ” said her mother. 

She seems to plunge her orush wildly into the paint, then give 
vicious dabs here and there, and out comes some ^extraordinary 
effect.” 

” Some painter ought to see her — what she does and how she 
does it,” remarked Mr. Rawson; and then he produced Mis. Mac- 
donald’s letter. 

At first Mrs. Drew shook her head doubtfully. 

” Lilith among strangers,” she said — ” she, so peculiar, so differ- 
ent f’om other girls? Oh, it would never do! They would lose 
patience; and that is the worst thing that could happen to her.” 

Mr. Rawson hastened to give an account of his sisters— they 
were so thoughtful, so conscientious. Judith— Mrs. Law -had so 
much feeling for art — she was quite an authority among her friends 
— the}^ came to consult her in reference to taking down a volume of 
the ” Britan nica.” 

At that moment Lilith swung herself round weirdly, and cried 
that they were free to come and look, and say what they liked, for 
nShe cared nothing for anybody’s opinion. 


A woman’s love-story. 


33 


People’s opinions depend upon their tempers/’ she said. “I 
wouldn’t give a tarthing for a man’s opinion if his wife had given him 
ti dinner he didn't like, or if his piincipal shares weie going down 
in the money market;” and then she began to clean ner brushes. 

The Rector had often seen Lilith’s quaint fancies on the canvas; 
but there was startling power in this picture, which had been painted 
while Lilith was the prey of \iolent emotion. It was a pine forest. 
To right and left were giant trees, behind these was thick forest 
gloom. The scene was a small clearing — huge stones were grouped 
about. As one looked, one saw that they were shaped as creeping 
moristers— great toads with dark staring eyes, seals with grotesque 
faces, serpent-heads peeping leeringly and banefully from among 
the clumsier shapes. 

The Rector recoiled, saying, “Oh, dear me!” and vaguely won- 
dere^i whether Lilith had been properly — completely — confirmed. 
As her pastor and godfather, he did not like “ the heathenish spirit 
nt this thing.” Fe liked it still less as, assuming his glasses, he 
saw that the clearing was alive with tiny creatures — dwarfs, but 
quite diftei’ent from the ordinary dwarfs of the painters—boys with 
all the tricky ways of boys, wearing leaves like tunics belted at the 
waist with grass — boys’ faces too; but the expressions on the faces 
were expressions that could have been wrought and stamped there 
only by hundreds ot years of human passions. 

That this girl, just fifteen, who had been baptized, carefully 
brought up, learning her catechism, her collects, epistles, and gospels 
on Sundays, who had been minutely prepared by him for confirma-^ 
tion, on whose head the good bishop of the diocese had laid his 
hands, and who had behaved with such Christian nobility in the late 
domestic misery, could sit down and paint such a diabolical-looking 
thing — the Rector could not understand it. He felt scared, shocked 
somehow. 

“ 1 did not know that we had any pines in the neighborhood,” he 
began, dropping his glasses, and feeling unpleasantly that he should 
remember those dwarfs for a long time. “ 1 recollect some Scotch 
firs on Hilton Hill; but those are genuine North German trees.” 

“1 dare say they are,” said Lilith gravely. “1 did not go to 
them; they came to me, Hr. Rawson, in my dreams, and 1 made 
notes about the peculiar colors— I had not seen or used exactly that 
green before. And then those dwarfs — oh, they were amusing! I 
never heard creatures talk like that! They don’t seem to have any 
ideas of our morality at all, though they seem to have a peculiar 
sort of morality of their own. Do you see those two on that 
bowlder?” Lilith pulled unwilling Mr. Rawson closer to the can- 
vas. “ Well, 1 saw them climb up that bowlder— how funny they 
looked!— and squat at the top, beginning a grave consultation. 
Down below on the moss was a sick dwarf— a sick dwarf seemed 
to be a very unusual' thing. Twenty or thirty dwarfs sat round 
him in a ring, any one ready to fiy at an instant’s notice to get any- 
thing for their poor comrade. Now these two had fancied the sick 
dwarf asked for beer. They knew he liked beer, because they had 
often been beer-stealing with him on former occasions ; but now there 
was a difificulty. 1 heard them wonder how they should get the 
beer brought to him. They had always made holes in the casks 


34 A avoman’s loye-stoky. 

with their tiny gimlets, and extracted heer by driving in a pierced 
fir-needle. Now they felt they must abstract a bottle. The bravery 
ot those pigmies! The way they set out, leaped, scrambled, and 
made their way down to the town, overwhelmed me with admira- 
tion, as did the way they stole their bottle and rolled it uphill T' 

“ Lilith has been reading fairy-tales late at night,'' said Mr. Raw- 
son. “ xAh, she will not do that in London!" 

He was determined that Lilith should have the chance ot overr 
coming sickly fancies, so he left no stone unturned until all was ar- 
ranged for her journey. 

It was a beautiful July day when Mr. Rawson took his godchild 
to London. He rode over io the Hall in the early morning; they 
were to drive to the station, he and Lilith, alone, in the squire's dog- 
cart, luggage and all. This was by the girl’s special desire. She 
wished to take leave of the Hall and her loved ones at the same time. 

‘‘1 do not want to be haunted by two pictures," she said to her 
mother. " 1 shall always be seeing the old place— the garden, the 
hut, the stables, the poplars — when 1 shut my eyes. 1 don’t want 
to be haunted by you and grandpapa standing on the platform and 
looking at me, sad and reproachful. 1 am going to London io 
work — and to work hard. Now to work hard is hard work, and 1 
must not be home-sick— 1 have felt something like home-sicknesa in 
advance. 1 must not always want to paint your faces on every 
canvas." 

Lilith had some vague notion of going direct from her wild spas- 
modic painting in her mother’s " den " to some great artist’s studio. 
Her mind was stored with legends of the youth of great artists— of 
one whose talent was discovered by his rude charcoal sketches on 
his whitewashed garret- walls; ot another, Zuraban, " the mulatto of 
Murillo," who painted at the students’ pictures early in the morn- 
ing, and led to the students’ belief that their master’s studio ^vaa 
haunted by an occult " brownie," never suspecting that the actual 
"brownie" was their little "fag" the color-grinder and brush- 
cleaner; of Chantrey, whose first stroke of genius was the modeling 
in paste of a sow and her litter of pigs for the top crust of a pork-pie 
his mother was making; of many others, who had seemed merely te 
spread their wings and fly to the topmost pinnacle of fame. She 
had not read between the lines— she had not counted the years of 
struggle, ot bitter disappointment, of cruel failures, whose memories- 
were buried in the sensitive hearts ot the great in art of whom those 
fanciful tales were told. Her art-world was like the world she had 
gazed at beyond the row of poplar- trees— if sometimes stormy, often 
a golden blaze, or a sea of glorious color — beautiful always, com- 
monplace never. 

She would not easily forget her last look— as ignorant child— of 
home — the gray-stone facade, still in shadow, tor it was not nina 
o’clock; her grandmother standing just within the doorway, under 
the portico, smiling and weaving her pocket-handkerchief whenever 
Lilith looked up from her high perch in the dog-cart ; her grand- 
father, who seemed aged somehow since his daughter’s trouble, talk- 
ing with assumed cheerfulness to Mr. Rawson about the crops and 
the coming harvest; and her mother, who stood on the lowest step 
of the .broad flight, slim and tall, in her plain black dress and 


A WO^VIAlSr’S LOVE-STORY. 35 

“widow’s collar, shadinff her eyes with her hand as she reminded 
Lilith of this and that in her thou^^htful motherly way. 

The luggage was packed in, Mr. Rawson drew on his gloves, the 
groom jumped up behind, the horse gave a spring, and dashed oft. 
Lilith heard a faint “ Heaven bless you!’' then shouts and farewells 
from the maids who were crowding behind the gate into the kitchen- 
garden to wave their parting greetings to Miss Lilith, who was going 
away to London tor some indefinite time, for some indefinite pur- 
pose; then the short excited barks of Watch, the coilie/who was 
going, with his young mistress to guard her in the great black city he 
had never seen. Then the road went through the shrubbery; the 
dew glistened on the leafy boughs in the morning sunlight, sweet 
odors of honeysuckle and fir-cones scented the pure air, the doves 
were cooing, now and then a hare or rabbit rustled and fled across 
the road, or Watch’s bark startled a covey of partridges, and they 
flew up and away with a whir; then out iuto the park again, Lilith 
giving one last longing look back at the old stone house among the 
trees and the bracken, while the lodge-keeper's wife let them through 
the park gate, nearly upsetting the tiny child who clung to her skirts 
by her parting courtesy to her" young lady as she did so; then — the 
world! 

It was still home though, for this was the squire’s land, and the 
ruddy corn beyond the hedges was the squire’s corn. Then came 
the hiffh-road, the station yard with its rough flints, over which even 
the bay mare went more slowly; then, dismounting, Mr. Rawson at 
once took Lilith to the compartment the squire— a director of the 
loop-line of which Heathside was temporary terminus— had insisted 
on reserving for the journey, that Lilith might have Watch with 
her. 

There were no tickets to take; so Mr. Rawson came in, and began 
to talk cheerfully about London; and this he did at intervals during 
the journey. He found Lilith’s ideas of her temporary life in town 
confident, cheerful, but so vague that he grew somewhat puzzled 
before they arrived within the smoke-radius of the capital. 

‘ ‘ 1 shall work in one of the studios, of course — the question is, 
which?” said Lilith decidedly. 

Mr. Rawson, finding that Lilith meant the studios of the principal 
R.A.’s, ventured to propose the question whether these great men 
really allowed students to stand by and learn their secrets of style. 

” it seems to me that 1 have not heard of their doing so,” he said, 
in a conciliatory tone. ”1 myself— in my ignorance, doubtless — 
should fancy that, as so many of the successful painters of the day 
occupy special positions on account of their special manner, if they 
allowed rising talent the benefit of theii; discoveries and the result of 
their severe work, they would simply be like a king admitting others 
to reign with him coequally.” 

“All the great painters— Raphael, Titian, Leonardo, and the rest 
— taught— thought it an honor to teach their particular schools,” 
said Lilith. “ How else could they have continued to multiply 
masterpieces? Their pupils painted the coarser details. This is 
wh:it 1 expect to do first. 1 know the painter, in my own mind, that 
1 feel with and can learn from. 1 shall not like the work at first, 
but it will be everything to me.” 


36 A woman’s love-story. ■ 

And how about drawing?” asked Mr. Rawson innocently, 

“ Drawing?” Lilith opened her eyes. 

” My sister attended a drawing-school for years before she was al- 
lowed to use the brush,” said the rector. 

” 1 can draw anything I see.” 

” So could Judith. We all thought so too; but, when a master 
saw her drawings, he found fault with nearly everything, and put 
her back to the beginning. ” 

Just then the train began to steam into a thicket oi houses. The 
outlook was dismal— stacks of chimneys, dirty house-tops, broken 
windows, with slatternly women leaning out and scolding ragged 
children that were hopping about in the alleys below. 

“If 1 have to begin at the very beginning, 1 will be brave,” 
thought Lilith. “1 will go through with it all patiently, step by 
step.” 

Tills resolve taken, she felt brighter. Then came the noise and 
confusion of the bustling terminus; but the roar and rush were soon 
in (he past, and Lilith was driving through the London streets, Mr. 
Rawson at her side, in old Mr. Law’s brougham. 

The coachman, being accustomed to drivb his invalid master and 
the timid ladies, managed the quiet horse leisurely, so that Lilith had 
time to look at the principal buildings. 

“ 1 should think that London could not be painted except in sepia 
or Indian ink,” was her remark. 

St. Paul’s delighted her. But such a building, those columns 
and porticoes, under such a sky! It seemed to her to stand there 
mournfully, half black, halt wliite, as if in widow’s weeds, a silent 
warning to the restless crowd surging about its great walls of what 
this atmosphere was in which they lived and breathed. 

The busy crowds bustling this way and that, so. many men frown- 
ing and solemn, so many talking, a few, a very few smiling, was 
the most exciting sight to Lilith. {She felt as if all these were her 
brothers, children of their common mother Nature, who urged them 
on, on in their different paths, all leading— whither? 

She was going to work, to struggle; but why, and for what end? 

Her philosophizing was over. After the coachman had carefully 
driven them through numberless 'narrow streets, they rolled into a 
quiet square. The horse trotted gallantly up to his master’s door. 


CHAPTER VI. 

A QUIET spot. While Mr. Rawson alighted and knocked at the 
oW-fashioned dark-green door with the quaint brass knocker, Lilith 
peeped out of window. Giant sycamores shaded the short dark turt 
in the square garden. There was a smutty statue on a broad 
pedestal; she saw a crown, scepter, and oib on this effigy, of a bulky 
dame, whom she afterward knew to be Queen Anne. Two or three 
toddling children played about a wooden bench where their nurses 
sat knitting; their little voices sounded shrilly in the silence. Lilith 
heard the horse’s breathing, and a distant roar and rumble which 
was new and strange, the restless friction of a great city. 

Then the house door opened — there was a sound of cheertuL 


A WOMAiT’S LOVE-STORY. ’ 37 

voices. Lilith saw two ladies and a maid in a mob-cap coming out 
upon the door-step, exchanging greetings with the Rector. 

“ Come, my dear,’’ he said at the carriage window, opening thQ 
door and bending his arm for Lilith to lean upon, “ My sisters are 
quite anxious to see you.” 

Lilith was kissed and embraced by two ladies in caps; then she 
found herself in a square hall, which reminded her of home, with 
its old oaken furniture, blacls; and white marble flooring, and the 
giant clock ticking solemnly dn the corner. 

Up the wide shallot staircase, past the broad window-seat with 
its dark-blue cushions at either end, one of the ladies led Lilith 
gently, almost apologetically. There was an open book upon the 
broad seat under the stained glass window^ 

Lilith’s conductor stopped short, pounced upon and with some 
difficulty pocketed the tiny but bulky volume. 

“ That is my boy Willie,” she whispered to Lilith; “ it is so lucky 
1 saw it. My sister, Mrs. Law” — looking back— “his aunt, you 
know, objects to untidiness, also to poetry — at least, wild poetry. 
Of course I don’t mean Longfellow’s ‘ Psalm of Life,’ and some of 
Sir Walter Scott’s ballads, and Schiller, and * In Memoriam:’ but 
she does not think wild poetry good for young people, you know.’^ 

Lilith gave a quick look back. Mr. Rawson and Mrs. Law were 
slowly ascending the staircase, talking earnestly in a low voice. 

She gave a short sneering little grimace. She often made those 
ape-like grimaces without knowing it. Mis. Macdonald staled in 
dismay at the tall dark girl with the strange angry eyes and the un- 
kempt mass of frizzly hair. She was still more in dismay when the 
unconventional creature said — 

“ Then Mrs. Law and 1 shall never get on — that is clear. I might 
as well g{ t into the carriage, drive back to the station, and be off 
home again.” 

“ My — my dear,’" stammered the startled Mrs. Macdonald, “ pray 
consider— here they are! Of course you are agitated, leaving home 
and your dear mother, and all that.” 

Mrs. Macdonald, a fair woman with a certain wistful prettiness 
and a kindly but submissive manner, grew pale. She was almost as 
much startled as when an Irish maid, whom both she and Mrs. Law 
had considered a most respectable and valuable servant, returned 
one night from a Fenian gathering, red as a rose with entlmsiasra, 
and huskily, albeit somewhat unsteadily, intent upon her ladies’ 
speedy removal troiii this troublesome world to a calmer sphere by 
means of a carving-knife. 

“ My dear, it doesn’t matter one bit what you say to me, you 
know, as 1 always tell Willie — and you are young like Willie. But 
you must be careful with dear Judith — Mrs. Law, you know — she 
is BO clever, so remarkable. I may say that she has always been like 
a queen among us since early childhood.” 

Lilith looked at Mrs. Law, who had just turned the staircase cor-" 
ner, and who was glancing Suspiciously at the tumbled cushions on 
the window-seat and severely thinking, “That boy again!” Mrs. 
Law stooped, as if from long habit of looking for others’ defalca- 
tions. She wore a coarse black “ front under her big cap with the 


38 A woman’s loye story. 

bright flowers, and a dress made after the most useful pattern. She 
had a black silk apron with pockets. 

“ A queer sort of queen!” thought Lilith, as she noticed Mrs. 
Law’s wrinkled face, shifting little eyes, and firm mouth. * “ She re- 
minds me of a prison-gate.” 

Judith — Mrs. Law — happened to catch sight of Lilith’s strange 
face, distorted by a look of distrust and disapproval, and her ex- 
pression settled into sternness as she told herself she would never 
like that girl — she believed she was destined to be a worse trouble to 
her than her nephew Willie. 

However, Mr. Rawson smoothed matters by asking Lilith whether 
she would not like to see Mr. Law before she went to her room; and 
Lilith, whose strongest feeling was that holiest one of all, pity, or 
compassion, gave such a hearty “ Y"es ” that Mrs. Macdonald felt 
relieved, and began to hope that their young guest’s good nature 
■would be found almost to. balance her eccentricity. 

Mrs. Law cautiously opened one of the lofty oaken doors with the 
queerly-carved cornices— all fat playful Cupids and satyrs, and oak- 
branches where undraped nymphs were playing bo-peep— and the 
four passed in. 

The drawing rooms were two large chambers thrown into one. 
The walls were painted m medallions. The square stiff ottomans 
and gilt chairs were covered with faded tapestry. There were slim 
marquelerie tables and tall cabinets; the window-curtains were 
primly caught up, and their folds stifliy arranged under the giant 
fringes and heavy gilt cornices. It was a room which made one 
think the present fashion of garments, the present manners and talk, 
out of place there. Lilith felt that, if she sal here alone, she would 
■fancy stately minuets gracefully danced by the ghosts of by- gone 
inhabitants in shadowy sacques and powdered wigs, lace ruffles and 
high heeled shoes; and even now she turned away sharply from 
two great faded oil-paintings hung on either side of the high carved 
mantel shelf — one a dandy wiih his hand on his hip, the other his 
lady, laced into her satin dress so tightly that her beau might have 
spanned her tiny waist with two of his long white fingers. Their 
eyes seemed to follow her, as if mutely asking with a sad hauteur^ 

“ And pray what may you be doing here?” 

An old man with a fair withered face, long white hair which 
rested on his Indian dressing-gown, and a silken snowy beard was 
sitting in a high-backed arm-chair, propped and supported by cush- 
ions. Mr. taw was the sole living represeniative of the purest 
branch of an old English family. The young dandy in the picture 
was his grandfather, ~Sir Richard Law, Knight, and the tightly-laced 
lady was Dame Cecilia, his grandmother. Both were painted in 
ilieir youth. This had been "the family town-house when Prince’s 
Square was the Belgrave or Gfosvenor Square of the period. This 
present Richard Law had spent years of his youth and middle-age 
in India. Now he was poring over the ” Wallahabad Gazette,” 
which interesting journal he laid down on the table covered with 
chessmen, carved sandal- wood knick-knacks, colored figures of In- 
dians, and jeweled daggers, which he kept near him as a sort of 
make-believe that his foster-countiy was not actually so far away. 


A WOlCAS’S LOVE-STORY. 39 

lie laid it down wlien his wife went toward him, saying shrilly 
close to liis ear — 

“My brother’s young friend, my dear. Come to stay a short 
time.” 

“Ah, indeed!” said the old gentleman, in hushed quavering 
tones, which had become habitual since his deafness. “ Your arm, 
my love. Thanks.” And rising with much diiRcully, he said, “ 1 
am glad to welcome you here, my dear, in this, our quiet English 
home. It is very different from Wallahabad; but you must try to 
make the best of it. Welcome to Prince’s Square also, ever- welcome 
brother-in-law! No, my dear, 1 thank you, not yet ” — in reproach- 
ful tones to his wife, who wanted him to sit down again— “not 
while a young lady remains unseated.” 

Then he gave Lilith an intent glance through his spectacles. He 
saw something about her which reminded him of the tropics. 

“Our young friend has, perhaps, been to India?” he asked, with 
a pleased smile to Rawson. 

“Don’t laugh. He always asks every one that when he first 
sees them,” said Mrs. Law sharply to Lilith. 

As sharply replying, “ 1 laugh?” she went up to the old man and 
said, her young clear voice barely raised — 

“ Not yet; but I hope to go. It must be a magnificent country.” 

The old man’s face, which had the quaint beauty of a certain 
type of old age, grew radiant. 

“Magnificent?” he repeated, tremblingly sinking into his chair. 
“ What a country— what a country it was! Ah, the British fiag has 
brought law perhaps; but never again can the splendor be what it 
was!” 

Then he held forth about the native princes, their glory, their 
retinues, their gorgeous palaces, his visits to them, when at parting 
they would throw a jeweled chain hung with rubies and emeralds 
around his neck, as if those priceless gems were mere berries 
plucked from the trees. He was waxing more enthusiastic, and 
was even commencing, to tell stories of the origin of some of the 
jeweled scabbards on his table, when his careful wife, who had 
been surveying tne group with her quick restless little eyes, as a 
watchful cat might survey a distant group of mice, stopped her hus- 
band’s discourse without much ceremony. 

“ Take Lily — not Lily? oh, thank you, Hugh! Lilith to her room, 
Mary, my dear,” she said to her meekly-obeying sister. 

Meanwhile her sharp ears had distinctly heard Lilith say to her 
brother, Mr. Rawson — 

“ He reminds me of the little Glassman. 1 shall paint him as the 
little Glassman standing on a knoll; his heard and hair are like 
spun glass, and will come out so well against the dark trunks of the 
forest trees!” 

Lilith and Mrs. Macdonald disappeared. Mrs. Law settled her 
husband into his chair for a quiet perusal of the newly- arrived 
“ Buddjapore Times;” then she turned to Rawson and asked him 
with much asperity what that was about some glass man. 

“ As a rule, 1 should not dream of purposely overhearing,” she 
said, v^uth some disdain; “ but 1 confess myself disappointed in Lil- 
ith Drew. Bad blood will tell, 1 fear! Girls can scarcely be the 


40 


A womak’s loye-stoey. 


daughters of scoundrels without being tainted. As i( is, it is only a 
case ot bad taste. One would have thought that the girl intended 
.me to hear her compare Mr. Law to a vender of glass.” 

Mr. Rawson hastened to correct Mrs. Law’s natural mistake. He 
assured her that the glass man Lilith mentioned was a forest sprite, 
a good genius — the hero of a celebrated Geiman tale, a translation 
of which he was constantly in the habit of reading at the entertain- 
ment given to the young people of the parish in the boys’ school. 
Mrs. Law was aghast, horrified. 

Well,” she said, nodding her head, “ what your wife can be 
about, allowing you lo lead fairy tales to the boys and girls- who will 
have to till the ground or enter domestic service, 1 can’t imagine. 
Hugh, 1 thought better of you. When Christian ladies and gentle- 
men have written such exemplary tales of women who are up at 
five and get their daily duties over by nine, so that they may take in 
washing or go out charing to help their families, or of men who give 
up hot dinners on Sunday to keep the Sabbath—] say, when you 
read tales of fairies and fooleries, instead of these, whose Jofty pur- 
poses must infiuence the lower class for good, 1 would not be in 
your place at the Judgment Day — that’s all. 1 should know foi a 
certainty that 1 should hear that awful word ‘ Goats!’ when 1 dared 
to appear.” 

Hugli Rawson knew of old that it was useless to argue with Ju- 
dith, so he good-humoredly changed the conversation; he had many 
commissions to execute in town; he would return, just for a few 
minutes, after their late dinner, to wish Lilith ” Good-by. ” 

It was more than dusk when he called in Prince’s Square. Coffee 
was being served by the old man-servant in the drawing-rooms, 
which were dimly lighted by one or two shaded lamps and a few 
candles here and there. 

Mrs. Law was reading aloud to her husband in his corner, Mrs. 
Macdonald sat close by doing some ” evening work,” embroidery or 
what not. As Mr. Rawson entered, he did not see Lilith; but he 
heard an amused laugh in the back drawing- room, and then another 
in a pleasant manly tone. 

“Lilith and Willie playing chess,” said Mrs. Macdonald depre* 
catingly. “ 1 think chess such an intellectual, sensible game for 
young people. ” 

“ When they have the intellect and sense to play it as it should be 
played,” put in Mrs. Law. “ 1 confess that 1 am not in the habit of 
hearing laughter from chess-players. might as well look for 

laughter at the whist-table. My dear, if Willie goes on at that rate, 
take part in the whist of this house he most assuredly shall not. He 
will have to go elsewhere if he wants to play.” 

The Rector tried to be agreeable to his autocratic sister. Lilith’s 
hearty genuine laugh had reassured him. During the morning he 
had misgivings that the child’s visit to London might possibly 
prove a failure; now he felt somehow as if it might even be a suc- 
cess. 

He did not disturb the chess players in the back drawing-room 
until he was forced to take leave to be in time for his train. Then 
he called to Lilith, “ 1 am going;” and she flew to him, looking 


A woman’s lote-story. 41 

radiant and bright in spite of her mourning garb, and accompanied 
him to the hall door. 

“And what am 1 to say to mother?” he asKed, after he had 
kissed her forehead and blessed her, and was standing on the door> 
step in the moonlight. “ What are your messages?” 

“ That Mrs. Macdonald is a very nice kind person,” she began; 
then, coming near, she added, whispering, “ but she gives in to Mrs. 
Law too much. And, as for the poor dear Glassman, it is shocking! 
I have made up my mind to read up India hard, and talk t-j him of 
nothing else;” then she stopped, hesitating. 

“ Well, make haste, dear; I am late. What else?” 

“ That I like the house and my bed*room and Willie — oh, 1 like 
Willie immensely! He is really the first boy I have talked to 
properly.” 

“ Boy!” the Rector laughed uneasily. “ My dear child, William 
Macdonald is a young man of perhaps six- or seven-aud-twenty, ” 

“ Well, he behaves just like a boy; so it doesn’t matter what his 
age is. He has promised to do a lot of things for me. ” 

“ Good-night, and Heaven bless you!” said the Rector, going off 
gravely. 

“ 1 wonder what Lilian will think of the child’s messages?” 
mused Mr. Rawson, between his dozings during the night-journey to 
Heathside. "‘Judith and Lilith are utterly "antagonistic— of that 
there is not the shadow of a doubt. She likes Mrs. Macdonald, 
also the poor old gentleman, and she is capable of siding with them 
against Judith. Then she likes the house, her bed-roonr, and Wil- 
lie. 1 hardly liked that putting Willie last. 1 have noticed that 
people generally put something they like best at the end of the cata- 
logue. In talking you never get them to unbosom themselves till 
quite the end of the time. The worst is, this transplantation to Lon- 
don is my doing,” he concluded uncomfortably. “ Well, if it does 
not turn out well, 1 shall have the consolation that I acted for the 
best — a poor consolation, but still a consolation.” 


CHAPTER VU. 

Lilith felt soiry when she saw her godfather walking away 
quickly in the moonlight. She shut the heavy door with some diffi- 
culty, and turned to see Willie Macdonald running down-stairs. 

“You should have let me do that for you, little one,” he said, 
with the elder-brother kindliness that some young grown-up people 
show to juniors. 

He stood undei the red-and-yeilow stained-glass lamp which 
swung gently from the hall ceiling. He was tall, rathdi broad, and 
very fair, Scotch lookina’, after the Macdonalds, with the fine firm 
facial outline of the Rawsons. It was a manly face, with boyish 
fun in the bright blue eyes and playing about a somewhat effeminate 
mouth. 

He was in evening-dress. Mrs. Law never relaxed what she termed 
“ decent and orderly habits.” All at No. 6, Prince’s Square, retired 
to their rooms an hour before dinner, which hour they were sup- 
posed at all events to spend partly in attiring themselves for the im- 


43 


A woman’s love-story. 


portant meal of the day. A little bell began tinkling — a feeble but 
a persistent little bell. 

“ Prayers !’" said Willie to Lilith. It is one of my uncle’s little 
pleasures to ring the bell.” 

The two went slowly upstairs when suddenly Willie remembered 
his Shelley. He stopped short at the window seat. Lilith noticed 
him flush up, and then anxiously peer into corners and hurriedly 
shake the blue cushions. 

She nudged him, and whispered that his mother had found his 
book and put it into her pocket. 

“Oh!” said Wiilie, amused that such a new-comer should have 
“ seen through ” the family affairs. 

He had partly liked LiJith at first sight because she reminded 
him, with her slouching gait and sharp eyes, of an old pet of his. 
This had been a crane, given him by his uncle— a queer old bird, 
who 'was never presentable, because he was continually moulting, 
the process being so interminable that, when one wing was in perfect 
Older, the other looked as if some one had plucked him altve. 

Now Willie liked Lilith because she was “sharp,” unlike those 
“ bread-and-butter misses,” as he called girls in their teens, much to 
the' gratification of his mother and aunt, the latter of whom was 
wont to state, when he was not present, that, when the time came 
for William to marry, she would choose him a wife. 

“My aunt does not like poetry,” he explained to Lilith, as they 
went slowl}^ upstaiis. 

“ Not wild poetry,” said Lilith, smiling— she scarcely knew why. 
“ You cannot say she dislikes poetry when she delights in Sir Walter 
Scot’s ballads, and believes in the ‘ Psalm of Life,’ and sees all the 
hidden beauties in that long-drawn-out epitaph ‘ In Memoriam.’ ” 

“‘in Memoriam!’” said VYillie, amused. “Wait a minute; 1 
had a lot to say to you— ‘ Memoriam ’ reminds me — but here are the 
servants trooping up, 1 say,” he said, forgetting Lilith was not a 
boy— she really seemed like a boy— “ look here! Take care you 
don’t laugh when uncle says * Amen ’ in the middle of the prayers. 
Poor soul, he is really devout; but he sows his ‘ Amens ’ broadcast. 
Then there is another thing,” he added earnestly. “ Aunt sets up 
for a judge of drawing and painting and art; but somehow 1 don’t 
think she is. So 1 shoula like to be there when you show what 
drawings you have to show; and you must back me up. Do you 
understand? She always wants me out of the way, because I don’t 
knock under to her. Do you see?” 

Lilith nodded ; and then the two passed sedately into the big rooms 
where James the butler had been arranging chairs in a circle around 
a table where there were a lamp and a big Prayer-book with clasps. 
Before this sal Mrs. Law, sternly devout, scrutinizing each one of 
the little congregation as he or she came in demurely. Mr. Law sat, 
wan, tired, and meek, by his wife’s side. Mrs. Law, who fancied 
she had once seen the old gentleman glance at an unusually comely 
housemaid at prayers, had since habitually confiscated his spectacles 
beforehand, so that during family prayer he might be said to be 
partially deprived of sight as well as of hearing. 

The servants, some of them maidens with gentle pretty faces, such 
as are frequently to be found in the service of somewhat stern mis- 


43 


A WOMAlSf’s LOVE-STORY. 

tresses, took Iheir seats quietly. Mrs. Macdonald, ’Willie, and Lilith 
sat aside, apart trom the household who lived below-stairs, as is 
customary in well-regulated families. Mrs. Law read a portion of 
Scripture in a warning sonorous voice. Then they all turned and 
knelt, and Lilith listened for the old gentleman’s voice. She had 
expected to be tempted to laughter, instead of which she was 
tempted to sadness. Sometimes Lilith had suffered actual mental 
pain v/hen a poor sheep, whose lambs ha.d been taken to market and 
were to her knowledge at that very hour at the butcher’s, had come 
near hei’ and “ baa’d ” with a woeful “ baa,’* looking wdth almost 
human wistfulness into her face. Something in old Mr. Law’s 
scattered “ Amens ” touched her to the quick — touched her almost 
to resentment, as the woes of an animal. There was a patience, a 
wistfulness, a submission in the quavering old voice. So, later on 
— when, prayers valiantly concluded by Mrs. Law, she determinedly 
seized her husband and removed him upstairs with a jailer or 
keeper-like manner, shortening his “good-nights” and refusing 
him his spectacles any more that night— Lilith felt the beginning of 
a love for the “little Glassman,” as she had mentally nicknamed 
him, and promised herself to make his life somewhat brighter, if 
she could. 

Mrs. Macdonald accompanied her to her room, and assured her 
that Watch was most comfortably housed in an old kennel prepared 
for him in a scullery next to the butler's bedroom. Then she tim- 
idly kissed Lilith — Mrs. Macdonald, never self-assertive, had grown 
diffident under her sister’s rule — and showed her the big wardrobe 
wh(3re the contents of her trunks were neatly arranged. 

“ Priscilla did it,” she said— “ one of those fair pleasant -looking 
maids; perhaps you noticed them at prayers Priscilla is prepared 
to wait upon you. You will only have to ring that bell by your bed, 
and she will come day or night; the bell rings in her room.” 

Lilith was about to expostulate — she had some theory about not 
being w^aited upon — but Mrs. Macdonald had disappeared. 

She sat down on the edge of her four-post bedstead and looked 
around her. It was a large back-room, with good buUfaded carpets 
and hangings; the furniture was well-polished dark mahogany; the 
lighted candles on the dressing-table were reflected here, "there, 
everywhere, as the flames flickered in the night- wind. The window 
was open, and the blind swayed in the rising breeze, rapping rest- 
lessly against the half-closed shutters. There was a night-light 
meekly burning behind the huge ewers and basins in the dark 
wooden washhand-stand ; Lilith’s dressing-gown lay limply over a 
prim chair. 

“ It looks just as it it were frightened,’” thought the girl; and 
then she looked round again. 

She felt as if there were something ghost-like about this staid bed- 
chamber in Prince’s Square. The house had belonged to the Laws 
since it was built. This had been a guest-chamber; but in two cent- 
uries how many tragic scenes might not have been enacted here I 
What stormy quarrels, what desperate grief, what remorse, what 
reconciliation. She stopped short. 

“ To be fanciful to- night is not the best preparation for being prac- 


44 


A woman’s loye-stoey, 

tical to-mdiTow/* she assured herself; so she called herself to prder 
and began to undress. 

To-morrow she must first undergo the ordeal of showing her 
paintings to strangers. Then Mrs. Law had informed her that she 
would herself take her to see an artist— not one of Lilith's visionary 
RA.’s, but a respectable luminary who happened to be a friend of 
Mr. Law's; he would very kindly give her his advice; and, when 
this advice had been heard, Mrs. Law would take Lilith to the new 
School of Ornamental Art, which was permitted by Government to 
have a branch house for females. Lilith had intensely disliked the 
word “ female " as thus applied; but she had determined not to be 
whimsical, and to accept all help gratefully that would further her 
object of study; so she had acquiesced thankfully, and she fell 
asleep prepared for the morrow’s progiamme, but scarcely for such 
mockery of sleep, lor such a maze in her dream-world. 

Asleep, she either merely lost consciousness partly or dreamed that 
she was lying there, for she saw each item in the room. Then she 
heard the door tried and pushed open, and in walked a lady, a very 
handsome woman, with a large hoop which swayed, followed a 
maid in a quaint dress, with a tall mob-cap, carrying a magnificent 
Court-costume with brocade. This the maid laid carefully on the 
sofa, paying particular attention to the gauzy puffings of the train. 
Meanwhile the lady, after removing her large hat and feathers and 
short cloak, bent forward toward the mirror on the dressing table to 
look at a little semicircular patch on her chin; and Lilith saw. in the 
reflection the portrait of Dame Cecilia in the big drawing-room. 
She started up with a cry— lo find that it was a dieam. The room 
was quiet in the dim light of the night-lamp on the wash-stand. She 
struck a match and looked at her watch. It was midnight; she could 
scarcely have slept an hour. 

She fell wide awake; it was an hour or more before she slept. 
Then, after a while, she dreamed again, and this time she knew she 
was dreaming. It was the village church at home. She saw the, 
ivy glistening, as if wet from recent rain. Storm-clouds were driv- 
ing across the sky. There was a dull hazy gray light upon the 
fence — upon the old tombstones. Tw^o people, a girl, and a young 
man, were walking along the narrow path. She heard their voices, 
heard the man say, “Lilith! ’ Then the girl looked back, and 
Lilith, horrified, recognized — herself! She strained — as people do in 
dreams — to see who tliis man was who called her “ Lilith,” and in 
the effort, and after the shock of seeing her “ double,” she awoke. 

The scare of the dream was still upon her. It was a warm July 
morning; the early sunshine streamed in. She rushed to the window 
and opened it. There were the staid black back-gardens lying 
straightly side by side. The back-windows of the King’s Square 
houses opposite were like closed lids, shuttered or veiled^ by white 
blinds. 

There were only a few cats creeping stealthily along the top of the 
garden-walls, or leaping down to reach their particular homes, out 
of wffiich they had w^andered over night. With a sigh Lilith leaned 
against the shutter. As she drew deep breaths of the morning air 
which came over the houses from Hampstead, the dream fled away 


A WOMAJq-’S LOTE- STORY. 45 

as fast as a straw cast into a swiftly-rushing current. In a few 
seconds she knew it was but a fantastic trick of memory in sleep. 

“ But it is too bad to have oneself and other people shaken up to- 
gether in dreams like lots that you draw out of a hat!’" she thought, 
while the church-clock close by rang out five strokes. Then fol- 
lowed the Westminster chimes. Some noisy sparrows, impish- 
looking birds in their plump blackness, flew out from under the 
root above, and chased each other wildly. A cat sitting'^on a para- 
pet, half dozing, with her tail comfortably curled round her, 
opened her eyes and pricked up her eais, then' dozed again, recog- 
nizing the impossibility of capturing such excitable creatures. 

“ 1 shall get up — and paint,’' decided Lilith. 

The next room to her bed-chamber, formerly a work-room, had 
been arranged for her as “ a room to draw in,” as Mrs. Law insisted 
upon calling it. ” It was ridiculous to give a beginner a studio,” 
she said. She was determined not to encourage ” folly.” 

It was a comfortable little room, with one large window. Here 
and there were box-ottotnans that had stored the needlework which 
had proceeded here for so many years; Lilith’s packages, her pict- 
ures, canvases, paint-boxes, et-mtera, were piled on an old mahog- 
any dinner-wagon. The room was arranged for use, not for orna- 
ment, as such an apartment in Mrs. Law’s house naturally would be. 

Lilith’s easel leaned limply in a corner. It seemed like a dear 
familiar old friend helplessly bound in these strange quarters. 

” Neither you nor 1 would have chosen this for ahome, lexpect,” 
said Lilith, mentally apostrophizing the easel — her inanimate com- 
panion through so many hours of happy or difficult work that she 
had unconsciously begun to feel for it as for some living thing. 
” But, now we are here, we must make the best of it.” 

She unbound the easel, set it up, got her canvas and her paints, 
and arranged the shutters. 

She was restlessly anxious to paint one or other of these two 
vivid di earns. She could recall the picturesque dress of Dame Ce- 
cilia, the tint of her quilted satin petticoat, the curious little cloak 
tied around her shoulders, the careless grace of her gesture as she 
threw down her big bat and feathers. Busily she squeezed the lit- 
tle dabs of paint on the palette, settled the canvas, and drew the 
figure of Dame Cecilia bending forward to glance at that patch on 
her pretty chin in the mirror over the dressing-table. 

The figure was drawn. The outlines of the table and mirror were 
complete. Then Lilith stopped short; she had forgotten the face, 
the colors — all. She passed her band across her eyes; this must be 
a trick of her ordinarily good memory. 

Mother used to say she could not understand how I could re- 
member scenes, tints, everything,” she said to herself. 

Then she walked a few steps and shut her eyes. The dream was 
gone. Her memory was a blank. 

Puzzled, She put aside her canvas, and took up another, mixed a 
few colors thoughtfully, and began to paint the churchyard. She 
would paint those figures as she saw them walking together along 
the path. 

The result was the same — failure. She could recollect the com- 
mon wooden planks—” Sacred to the Memory of John Smith” or 


46 A woman’s LOYE-STOliY. 

“ Here lie the Earthly Remains of Mary Brown”— but the figures 
seen in her dream— those she could not recall. 

bo she set to work and painted her mother’s portrait. She was 
so absorbed in her task that the quarters chimed and the dressing- 
bell rang and she did not hear. 

The breakfast- bell had just begun clanging, when the door opened 
and Watch bounded in and almost threw his mistress down. Willie 
Macdonald, who had been taking him for a walk, and came to hasten 
Lilith, added— 

“ Luckily Aunt Judith is not down yet.” 

“Why luckily?” asked Lilitli. “She would scarcely scold me. 
1 am not her husband, or her sister, or — her nephew.” 

Willie had nearly said “ But you are her guest,” when he stopped 
short. He hardly knew this swarthy, curious-looking girl’s temper 
yet, and was still cautious. 

“No,” he began; “but — you*see— they put you under Aunt 
Judith’s protection, as it were; and there is no denying the fact that 
she is— to put it mildly — strict.” 

Then, holding Watch, who was panting, with his tongue out, he 
stepped behind Lilith and suddenly said— 

“Oh!” 

He had formed no ideas about this girTs painting. The fact of a 
young-girl visitor had been too unimportant for him to care much 
what she did, or how she did it. Before Lilith came, it he had given 
her a passing thought, he set ber painting down as in the style of 
Aunt Judith’s, whose elaborate representations of natural flowers he 
liked less than those on wall-paper, because Mrs. Law’s productions 
affected to be like nature, and were accordingly an insult to his 
judgment, and those on the wall papers did not pretend lobe natural. 

This beautiful face, alive with meaning and expression, which 
seemed to look straight at him from the canvas, took away his breath. 
When he cried “Oh!” he could not have explained this surprise, 
this slight shock. He was unprepared. 

“ Why ‘ Oh ’?” said Lilith, with a suspicious look, turning round. 

* ‘ Only— that — well, it looks like a man’s work — that is all ! Where 
is the picture you copied it from?” 

“ Far away,” said Lilith dryly. “ What a judge this young man 
must be!” she thought disdainfully. The word “ copy” was de- 
testable to her. She had copied only from nature’s originals. 

“ You have a good memory then,” said Willie awkwardly, his 
respect growing as he watched Lilith touch the face here and there, 
bringing out wonderful effects, as if her brush were a wand and she 
a witch. “ That face reminds me of one — ah, 1 know now! It is 
in Fontainebleau — a St. Catharine — that lovely youthful martyr-look, 
as it she were ready to face all the horrors, yet was ignorant of all.” 

Lilith laughed. Willie blushed. 

“ Of course 1 know nothing,” he said; “ I am only a blunderer. 
But what have 1 said that makes you laugh?” 

“ Only what you said about youth. That is — my mother!” 

“ When she was young, of course?” Willie wished his remarks 
anywhere. He had some vague recollection of Mrs. Drew’s story, 
her desertion by her husband, his death, et emtera. But he had not 
felt sufficient curiosity to learn the truths of a painful story which 


A ^vomak’s loye-stoky. 


47 


liad been only darkly hinted at in his aunt’s evening conversation 
with his mother, when he was generally half-asleep in the drawing- 
room dimness. 

hlo,” said Lilith; “ 1 could hardly be expected to remember my 
mother — well, as young as 1 am— could 1? lam fifteen. Mother 
was not much more than eighteen when she married. She is some- 
where in the thirties; but, oh — ” 

She turned toward him and launched into hot romantic talk about 
this beautiful injured creature whom she called,** mother.” Willie 
listcfied, absently patting Watch— his elbow oh his knee, his cheek 
on his hand, till a robust peal of the loud hand-bell told that go 
down they must. 

“ And 1 am afraid — you won’t mind my saying so? I can see 
Watch’s paws all over your dress; and there lls such a curiously- 
shaded paint-smudge on your cheek,” said Willie awkwardly. 

Lilith laid down her brush and flew gleefully into her bed- room, 
iollowed by Watch, who, taking his captor by 'surprise, escaped. 

Willie went thoughtfully down-stairs. He felt that he had seen 
something new and unexpected, which had made a startling impres- 
sion upon him. 

That girl is mot at all like other people,” he said to himself. 

Mrs. Law was pouring out tea at the head of the long dining table. 
She had been delayed in her toilette by her husband’s fidgetiness — • 
she looked grim. Willie took his usual seat, glancing round at the 
dusky wainscoted w’^alls, which were hung with family portraits. 
Some of these were of beautiful women with long taper fingers and 
bright eyes that seemnd to follow one about. He had scarcely 
thought of these ancestral beauties before; now he looked at them 
with a new interest, to compare them with Lilith’s painting. . 

“Not one looks so alive,” he thought, as he cut bread for his 
mother— whose morning office it was to prepare old Mr. Law’s break- 
fast-tray before James carried it upstairs— “ and not one of those 
faces can compare with St. Catharine.” 

Then he glanced up; Mrs. Law said sharply, “ What’s that?” as 
she sometimes did when a suspicious clatter of crockery was heard 
in the distant kitchen; and James stood on the alert al his mistress’s 
elbow, respectfully hiding an irrepressible smile with his hand. 

No such noise had been heard in that house since Willie was a lad 
— James knew that right well. This gawky young lady seemed as 
if she was going to turn the house topsy-turvy in no time, the old 
man thought. 

Lilith was springing down-stairs, singing a Spanish serenade in a 
resonant contralto. Watch leaping and barking at her side. She 
rushed into the dining-room as she did at home when she was late, 
and almost knocked over a carved Indian screen which was kept 
near the door to intercept any wandering draught of air. 

“ My dear, whatever is the matter?” asked Sirs. Law, shocked. 

Lilith, taking a seat hastily placed ready for her by the nervous 
Mrs. Macdonald, explained that she thought she was late; then, see- 
ing James take up the tray prepared for Mr. Law, she had a sudden 
idea. 

“ Oh, it that is for Mr. Law, do let me take it up!” she said. “ 1 


48 


A WOMAJh’S LOYE'STOKY. : ^ 

know all about breakfasts in bed and grandfather says 1 manage his 
beautifully— nothing ev^er gets spilled.’’ 

“ My dear, 1 thank you; Janies will lake it up as usual. That will 
do, James.” 

Mrs. Law’s manner was freezing. Mrs. Macdonald, whose fair 
lace was pink with embarrassment, dashed into spasmodic tallc with 
all the three. Willie had taken Watch for a walk. Had he been 
good? Had Lilith slept well? 

“ Overslept, 1 should think,” said Mrs. Law dryly. “At least 
they talk of an over-accumulation of nervous force when people be- 
gin the day too cheerfully. They also talk of morning excitement 
leading to evening sorrow.” 

“You have a capital voice,” remarked Willie kindly to Lilith. 

“ In its place, at the right time,” said Mrs. Law — “ like every- 
thing else. You must understand also, my dear, that Watcli can be 
allowed above-stairs only on occasion.” Then she laid down her 
rules; then came prayers; then began the day of ordeal. 

When Lilith went upstairs to bed that night, she felt that she had 
lost something she could never find again in this world; but what was 
it? Puzzling, heavy-hearted, she sobbed herself to sleep. 


CHAPTER YIIL 

Mrs. Drew was watering her speciat plants in the shady conserv- 
atory when Lilith’s first letter arrived. She sat down on a bench 
under a great tropical creeper to. read it. There were several thin, 
sheets; the first spoke cautiously of the house in Prince’s Square and 
its occupants, 

“ They were all kind,” Lilith wrote, “ and Willie, Mrs. Macdon- 
ald’s son, is just like a boy of my own age; he is very kind, but a lit- 
tle awkward* like my big boys in the Sunday-school.” 

Then came the gist of the letter — 

“ Mother -oh, mother, if 1 could have known!” it began. “ Have 
1 been in a long dream, and is this the waking, or what is it? None 
of them think anything of my jiaintings — 1 even believe they think 
them actually had; they don’t give me much hope of ever doing any- 
thing. Can all this time have been wasted? Why did Heaven give 
me ideas if they were of no use? It is such a cruel puzzle! 1 am 
too anxious and worried to think or reason clearly. 1 will tell you 
everything — you shall judge, you shall tell me what to do. Well, 
yesterday morning early Mrs. Law came upstairs to see my paintings; 
Willie Macdonald came and helped me to put them in the right light, 
and spoke now and then just as if 1 had been a painter, instead of a 
poor yearning student. Well, Mrs. liaw looked at them all carefully 
through her spectacles, turned them this way and that, asked ques- 
tions, then said, * Plum, hum!’ or ‘That will do,’ or You have 
been allowed to go on in advance of your powers, so it is difficult to 
judge.’ 

“1 would not be discouraged; 1 started bravely for our visits, 
vuth the poor sketches. First, wo drove a long way to see Mr. R. 
It is a quaint old house, with great dark silent rooms, old paintings 
brooding on the walls, or dignified statues in corners that seemed to 


A AVOMAiv’S LOVE-STORY. 


49 


turn from us into the shadows; only the studio was. light, gay, and 
full of strange things — glass, carpets, hangings, birds brought from, 
the very ends of the world. Mr. R. was a kind old man, with gray 
hair and beard; but he talked to me as if 1 were a child at play^ 
mimicking art. He looked at my sketches, said, ‘ Not at all bad!' 
— as if it were astonishing that they were not; then, when 1 had no 
more to show, said, half in jest, half earnestly, ‘ Well, you ladies- 
are all of you alike on one point— 3^ou expect to begin where we old 
men, who have been hard at it all our lives, leave oft!' 

“Here Mrs. Law disclaimed this on. her own account; she said 
she had worked up line by line, point by point, and even now dared 
only attempt a flower, cr a bird’s-nest, or a bit of still life, et emitter a, . 
She had spent months at plain straight lines. Mr. R. nodded his 
head, and said, " Now if our young friend Avill follow your example, 
she may do well.' After this, he shook hands with us, evidently glad 
that he might now begin his work in peace; and we drove ofl: back 
into town to the Female Branch of the School for Ornamental Art, a 
big black hrmse in a long black street. 

“ The door was opened by a porter. We entered a great bare hall 
and were taken into the * office '—a large room with an ugly floor- 
cloth instead of a carpet, tables with books of statistics, directories, 
et ojetera, Q. lew unframed chalk-drawings of pieces of column or 
architrave pinned upon boaids on the wall and printed and written 
notices fastened to other green-baize-covered boards, great unvar- 
nished deal cupboards here and there, a copying press, hideous chairs. 
The only object with any beauty was the lady who sat at the table . 
in the center of the room. She was middle-aged, fair-faced, blue- 
eyed, and wore a pretty gray bonnet with shining gray satin strings. 

“ She was pleasant in her conventional way; she said ‘ Hem,’ or 
‘ Yes,* or * Quite so,' as Mrs. Law talked, and explained who she 
was and who 1 was, and that Mr. R. had given me ‘ reasonable en- 
couragement. ' Then the sketches were had out. 

“ She just smiled, and glanced at one or two; when she came to 
your favorite sunset, she said, ‘ I see our young friend is ambitious!' 
and shut the portfolio. 1 felt ashamed, till my courage overcame 
my shame. ‘ We see so many of these eflects,' she explained to Mrs, 
Law, * so inuch promise afterward unfulfilled, that we prefer to give 
our own tests of abilitj^; then, lecturing very cleverly upon the neces- 
sity of hard work, strict wwk, of passing through the bYmale School 
with the same patient and determiued spirit Avith which the Spartan 
maidens went through their gymnastic training, ‘ Our school is liter- 
ally a gymnasium of art,' she said, ‘and, while the strong grow 
stronger as they go on, the weak ones soon learn their weakness.' 

“ After this, she gave me the exminaiion-tests-^a biir ‘ O ’ and a 
big * A ’ to be copied' without any measurement— and a little book of 
geometry. Certain that I could have ‘ passed ' there and then, 1 fixed 
to-raorrow for the examination. She raised her eyebrows and re- 
pressed a smile. ‘You are hasty, my dear,’ she said; ‘but 1 like 
students to choose their own time.' Then she opened the room door 
for us, and in a minute we were driving back to the square, Mrs. 
Law praising this head-mistress, Miss Levell, and congratulating 
me on my clmnces of admission. Chances of admission! When 1 
Had only to draw an ‘ O ’ and an ‘A,' and knew six times as much 


50 


A woman’s love-stokt. 


as the little geometry -hook contained! Directly after luncheon 1 
flew upstairs, and got niy paper on my drawing-board, and cut ray 
chalks, Watch sitting grave in the corner, with his head on bis 
paws and his tjyes sleepily fixed on me.” (Watch seems quiet, and 
his tail lollops more than usual, and he does nothing but sniff sus- 
piciously about, then snort, as it he had a cold in his head.) 

“ Well, you would have thought my task an easy one enough! I 
began. The first ‘ A ' was a nice-looking one; but it was not like 
the copy. 1 found 1 must copy a little bit by little bit. The result 
was a shaky letter I should have been ashamed to own. Even this 
was not absolutely correct. 1 tried the ‘ O’s.’ These were woise. 
They were egg-shaped, or bulged in the middle when 1 drew boldly; 
and when I copied they looked so wretched, so wavering, that 1 began 
to feel as if 1 were bewitched. No wonder Miss Levell smiled at 
my haste! There were dozens of spoiled sheets, and not one that i 
could show ! 

” Here five o'clock struck, and Priscilla brought me tea; she 
stopped outside and told some one 1 was not to be disturbed. How- 
ever, Willie Macdonald— for it was he — said ‘ Nonsense!’ and came 
in. Then he sat in a corner and laughed at me. He said 1 must 
forgive him; but, sitting there crouched up on my high stool, I 
looked so like an unhappy bird— especially like a crane he used to 
keep, 1 think his manner did me good. 1 showed him my failures, 
* The worst is,’ 1 said, ‘ 1 have no more paper; and 1 cannot bear to 
ask your aunt to send for any — for she saw all this that 1 brought, 
and will know why it is gone. ’ ‘Oh, that is easily arranged!’ he 
said; and he went oft, and, before a minute or two were over — as it 
seemed to me — was back again, out of breath, with a great roll of 
cartridge-paper. He was determined, he said, to see my ‘ O ’ and 
my ‘ A ’ finished before dinner. It was only my nervousness which 
prevented me from doing myself justice in so simple a thing. He 
would sit by and tell me when 1 was going wrong. He did more 
than this. The boy gave me a valuable lesson in eye-measurement. 
1 began to see relativ'e distances in this horrid technical work. He 
talked and uvgefl me on. When the dressing-bell rang, 1 had an 
‘ A ’ and an ‘ O ’ ready which bore the test of close measurement by 
the original with the compasses. 

” He had no sooner finished measuring than he burst into talk. 
1 must tell you what he said that you may be able to judge of my 
doings. He said that this test was well given to one whose future 
work was to be in architecture or design, but that it was unfair 
where absolute accuracy was unnecessary. ‘ Who would want you 
to copy?’ he said. ‘ You are wanted to originate. They are going 
to bind you, and make you hop after them with your wings bound; 
however, I have litlle doubt but that you will break your bonds and 
fly, if necessary.’ Is not Willie a kind fellow?” 

Then the letter ended with the usual affectionate messages. Mrs. 
Drew felt all her child’s anxieties and emotions second-hand. She 
read the letter twice. Then she went on watering her flowers. She 
knew Lilith’s godfather would call that afternoon. 

She was lounging in the drawing-room with Madam Ware during 
the heal of the day when Mr. Kawson came in, flushed after his hot 


A woman’s love-stoey, 


51 


ride. After he had sat a while, Mrs. Drew handed him Lilith's let- 
ter. 

“ It is all right," he assured her. " There is only one point " — 
hesitating. 

Mrs. Drew managed to take him into the conservatory. There he 
explained himself. William Macdonald was a young man; Lilith 
was, if a child, developed for her fifteen years. Was such an inti- 
macy desirable? What did Mrs. Drew think? 

Mrs. Drew laughed The idea was absolutely amusing. 

“ Dear Lilith will be sate from any notions of that sort for many 
years to come," she said confidently. “ Poor darling, she is so un- 
beautiful, so singularly devoid of fresh youthful prettiness!" 

“ Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Rawson. It* was an "Ah!" that might 
mean almost anything, 

"My only anxiety is that she will be discouraged, " said Mrs. 
Drew. 

The Rector spoke warmly in praise of Lilith's courage. 

" If she is not very feminine in appearance, she is masculine in 
mind," he added. Then he took leave, advising Mrs. Drew to urge 
Lilith to persevere, and to go through the unwelcome drudgery of 
the Female School of Ornamental Art. 

As he rode home, he thouglit deeply about Lilith. He did not 
wish her strong, passionate, yet lofty nature to be chained by an early 
ordinary love-aftair. He did not quite understand Lilith. He some- 
times imagined that she was one of those exceptional creatures that 
occasionally appeared in the world like comets. In such a case, 
early marriage would be fatal to her happiness. 

" So we must beware of beginnings," thought the Rector, who felt 
the responsibility of godparency to a fatherless girl, and who firmly 
believed that one great principle in life was to nip undesirable buds. 
" One consolation is, we can always have her home!" 


CHAPTER IX. 


Mrs. Drew wrote to her daughter cheerily, playfully, with an 
underlying seriousness; she follow^ed the Rector’s advice. 

" Begin at this strict drawing-school," she wrote. " If you find 
you are doing no good there, you can always make a change and 
study elsewhere." 

Lilith felt brighter after her mother’s letter. She passed her 
geometrical examinations easily, and Miss Levell nodded quite con- 
descendingly when she show^ed her " O " and her "A." Next morn- 
in he began her student-life at the school. 



When she shut the hall door at Prince’s Square at starting, there 
weie Willie Macdonald and Watch waiting for her outside. Willie 
quietly informed her that he intended to escort her to and fro daily. 

" My hours at the Deed-Ofiice are ten till lour," he said; " yours 
are nine till five at the school; lean manage it well. It was quite a 
relief to Aunt J udith ; she was groaning about Priscilla’s wasted 
hours." 

Those walks in the fresh morning were delightful to Lilith; the 
air in the squares seemed cold and pure, almost country-like. Willie 


52 A womak’s love-story. 

was buoyant; he had a bright brain, and his talk was, if chiefly 

common-sen si cal,” clever and reasonable; it put Lilith into a suit- 
able humor for hei drudgery. This was extremely trying to the am- 
bitious idealistic girl; she who had had her freedom absolutely was 
mentally a prisoner. 

This was the routine she went through daily : The old porter who 
opened the school door checked the minuteof her arrival by the clock 
in the hall, and witnessed her signature of the same in a huge book. 
Then she passed through into the elementary students’ cloak-room. 
Bereft of cloak and bonnet, She went up the great stone staircases 
to the attics. There were some beautiful frescoes midway on a 
landing wall which she always looked at yearningly before com- 
mitting herself to the bald ugliness of her day’s work. These were 
processions of ancient times reproduced in the vivid coloring of to- 
day — Bacchic processions, with the young Dionysos astride his goat, 
surrounded by beautiful women, nymphs, joyous, boys, sly fauns, 
and wise satyrs. Why the Bacchanalian orgies should be the one 
“ thing of beauty ” for the female students to enjoy Lilith did not 
ask herself. IShe only knew that, as she passed these frescoes on 
her weary way to her weary work, she wondered bitterly why she 
was not born when these -joyous scenes were actual — part of each 
human being’s life. 

It was such a dreary place — those attics all thrown into one low- 
ceiled room, where she worked. The chamber for the “ elementa- 
ries ” w^as simple to wickedness — “One chamber of Hades,” was 
Lilith’s wild feeling when Miss Levell escorted her to hei future 
study-place for perhaps months to come — walls and ceilings white- 
washed; long plain wooden and iron desks and high chairs, the 
whole furniture; nothing on the walls, and bare floors; high wire 
blinds to the windows. Lilith felt, with bei pang of dislike to this 
hiddeous place, that she could well imagine that to be shut up here 
would be the fitting but most terrible punishment of one who had 
deeply sinned through love of the Beautiful. 

How could the Beautiful be studied here? While she was won- 
dering, Miss Levell was arranging Lilith’s work at the portion of 
the long desk assigned to her. There was a glazed card with some 
traced lines hung against the rail above the desk, and on the desk 
was Lilith’s drawing-board, with a fresh white sheet of drawing- 
paper pinned upon it. This sheet had been pinned on by kind Miss 
Levell’s own fair hands, while Lilith was glanciug around at the 
many quiet, ugly, uncouth figures working away at the desks in si- 
lence which to Lilith seemed the hopeless silence of despair. Miss 
Levell was always kind to beginners who had to encounter their 
Slough of Despond. 

“ What is that? What am 1 to do?” asked Lilith. 

Miss Levell knew the question well. She showed Lilith how, 
without measurement, she was to draw certain lines at certain dis- 
tances from each other. Then she went on to the many other ele- 
mentary students, teaching and advising in a low voice which was 
in itself potently depressing. Presently she flitted past Lilith like a 
shadow and went out. Lilith set herself to her straight lines. By 
luncheon-time she had succeeded in drawing a few inches. At the 
end of the day the inches weie rubbed out. Lilith went from the 


A WOMAN^S LOVE-STORY. 53 

school fiercely. Willie Macdonald, who determinedly insisted upon 
her telling her first experience to him during their walk home, had 
hard work to pacify her. She grew more contented and less 
wretched when he gave her a humorous account of his first days at 
' the Deed-Office; when he had made her laugh, he took her horne. 

The next day Lilith’s hand was more obedient; Miss Levell en- 
couraged her. The day after, just before the luncheon-hour^ Miss 
Levell came in. Lilith had finished her curiously infantine task 
boldly; there were some fine bold lines upon the paper. Lilith’s 
heart beat taster as Miss Levell came up; she expected that these 
would be her first and last “lines” — she would be promoted to 
“ curves.” She was smiling to herself at the absurdity of the work, 
when there was a deep sigh. 

“ Aly dear,’ whispered Aliss Levell, “that will never do — quite 
incorrect. See here — and here” — pointing to the shiny card and to 
Lilith’s drawing alternately — “ you have not ascertained your dis- 
tance rightly; you must* take a fresh sheet and begin again.” 

While Aliss Levell lectured and taught, Lilith meekly unpinned 
the failure and pinnea another sheet upon her board. Then the 
luncheon bell rang, and Aliss Levell went away. The girls disap- 
peared— some to return to their homes in the neighborhood, others to 
eat their luncheons, seasoned with the chatter which was forbidden 
in the studios, in the dressing-rooms. 

Lilith was alone and furious. First sl^e paced the empty room in 
a rage, and then an idea came to her. She took up her drawing— 
those refected penciled lines — and, seeing how good they were, if not 
exactly like the copy, she resolved — 

“ I will give them some straight lines; and then good-by — come 
what may, good-by!” 

She sat down, scrawled “ The Palace of Straight Lines” at the 
top of her paper, and then made a bold sketch of the school, the ex- 
terior on one side of the paper, the interior on the other. 

They were fine sketches jvith her own firm artist -touch. The one 
bit of spite was a portrait— all in lines — of Aliss Levell, who was 
looking out of window, pointing rigidly to the inscription above. 

By the time she had finished this and had signed her name in full 
her head was hot with passion; she went quietly to the cloak-room, 
dressed, and strode back to Prince’s Square. 

She rushed down the area steps; Pri&cilla, who opened the door, 
stood aghast. 

1 have a-bad headache,” she said; then she asked for a letter to 
. be taken to the Deed-Office to Air. Willie, that he might not be 
troubled to call at the school for nothing. 

Pretty Priscilla was all sympathy. Airs. Law’s rule had made her 
maid-servants very gentle and obliging. Priscilla not only promised 
to keep Aliss Drew’s early return a secret from the ladies, but under- 
took to tat^e the letter to Air. Willie herself. 

“ But. before 1 go, you must let me see you lying down, miss, 
with a cup of tea and a bit of toast,” was her stipulation. 

While Priscilla made the tea and prepared the toast, Lilith crept 
upstairs and wrote the note to Willie herself. 

“ Dear Willie,—! have done with the school, and the school 


54 


A woman’s loye-story. 

with me; 1 'will tell you when you come home to day. 1 promise to 
do 'what you tell me, if only you will make haste. 

“Lilith.^' 

The note reached Willie halt an hour before he could leave the 
office. The half-hour seemed long; then he jumped into a hansom. 
As the cab sped along, he wondered vaguely why he was so anxious 
about Lilith, so deeply interested in her. 

“ 1 feel as it she were my sister,” he thought. “ 1 can see all her 
defects, and 1 don’t admire her personally one bit; but, if she is in 
trouble, I am up in arms. 1 feel as it 1 care for nothing till her 
affairs are set right.” 

Lilith had been crying passionately; but she met Willie with per- 
fect self-control. She sat on her chair in the painting-room and told 
him everything, while he sat on an ottoman, playing with Watch 
and occasionally stroking his fair mustache to conceal a smile, for 
he had still enough of the schoolboy element in his composition to 
enjoy a mutiny, and Lilith’s behavior to-day was certainly mutinous. 

‘‘ Your mother must be told,” he said, glancing toward the “ St. 
Catharine ’ ’ — as he called the sketch — in the corner ; but he persuaded 
Lilith not to write herself. “ 1 will tell my mother all about it,” 
he said; ” our mothers will understand each other. You see it will 
be painful to Mrs. Drew to hear that you and the school are at log- 
gerheads already.” 

Mrs. Macdonald wrote. Her answer was the appearance of Lil- 
ith’s mother upon the scene. She came to the Prince’s Square house 
as unobtrusively as any casual morning visitor. She had lunched 
with Mr. and Mrs. Law and Mrs. Macdonald, had talked over India 
with the old gentleman in the drawing-room afterward, and had 
been introduced to Willie before she had time to hear Lilith’s story. 
Then they sat side by side on the big sofa in Lilith’s bed-chamber, 
the rough dark head against the smooth fair one, and Lilith told 
her woes. 

Then Mis. Drew put on her bonnet and drove off to the drawing- 
school. 

Miss Levell was astonished to find . that this sweet-faced gentle 
lady was Lilith’s mother. 

” We think your daughter so extremely wild,” said Miss Levell. 

Of course she has imagination and facility of execution; but of 
what use are these without rigid training?” 

” Certainly very little,<” Mrs. Drew said. 

Then the two ladies talked over the matter, and Lilith was for- 
given, and reinstated for as long as she conformed to rules. 

The drawing-room tea was over 'when Mrs. Drew returned; but, 
as she went up the dimly lighted staircase, Lilith flew down and 
said that Willie had made her some tea in the painting-room in his 
own particular ” Etna.” 

The room looked cheery and bright. Mrs. Drew, as Lilith removed 
her bonnet and cloak, thought to herself how good it was that the 
child had some companionship. She had felt that Willie Macdonald 
was younger than his years 'v\ffien he blushed so furiously while he 
was introduced to her. 

” Willie happened to have a holiday,” Lilith informed her as she 


A WOMAlSr'S LOYE-STOKY. 55 

unbuttoned her cloak; “ and — oh, mother, what do you think? He 
has been and has got us a box for ' Komeo and Juliet ’ to night.” 

” Oh, 1 am so sorry!” Mrs. Drew looked regretfully at Willie. It 
was good of the young man to trouble about them; but the idea of 
herself and Lilith in a theater when their life-trouble had come 
straight from the stage— it was impossible! “We cannot go, Mr. 
IVlacdonald,” she said; “ but any one will be glad of the opportu- 
nity.” 

Lilith looked so disappointed that Willie forgot a sort of shy awk- 
wardness he felt with Mrs. Drew, and, while he poured out her tea 
and Lilith sat crouching by her, holding her tea-cup, he was quite 
eloquently persuasive. Mrs. Drew, always dreading to be selfish — 
indeed, she nursed a secret notion that she was one of the most selfish 
erea lures alive— began to waver. She had been to town to see her 
husband’s children. She had made sacrifices, that neither they 
nor their mother should want. If she had done this, she thought, 
was it not foolish to dread seeing a stage-play, a theater, again? 

“ You are beginning to persuade me,” she said, caressing Lilith’s 
shagg}^ head. “ 1 feel this child feWish with her longing to go. 
Thank you, Mr. Macdonald! If I can make my dull gown smart 
enough for going to the play,' I will go.” 

Both Lilith and Willie looked at each other. Willie rushed oft; 
Lilith executed a triumphant dance about the “ room to draw in,” 
as Mrs. Law called it, nearly upsetting Willie’s patent American 
lamp — that wonderful lamp which had once cooked a chop which it 
was possible to eat without paring the outside and surreptitiously 
throwing internal fiabby morsels to the cats in the back-gardens. 

In a moment Willieieturned with a white shiny box. He removed 
the lid, and there was a perfect bouquet of choice white roses. As 
he offered it gravely to Mrs. Drew, a festoon of white ribbon fell 
down her mourning skirts. Then, while she said “How lovely!” 
and buried her delicate little nose among the blooms, he carefully 
extracted from the box a long spray that would fasten from throat 
to waist. 

Mrs. Drew objected. Lilith, gathered up on the sofa-end, looked 
weirdly delighted. 

“ Mother, you look like ‘ The Mourning Bride, ’ ” she said, in her 
quick, curious way. “ I don’t know who she was, but you brought 
her to my mind; and, if you will stay to-morrow, 1 will paint you. 

i promise you it will be a picture that will make old K say 1 was 

quite right to begin where he left oft, and will make that old Lev- 
eler cut me oft those straight lines or give me up altogether.” 

“Lilith wants encouragement,” interposed Willie firmly. “It 
will be quite as well for you to stay. ” 

The boy spoke as if Mrs. Drew were a little school-girl, instead of 
his senior by ten years! She gave him a curious look, then capitu- 
lated. 

Priscilla, who was in the scheme of the play-going, took great 
pains with Mrs. Drew. She was nearly an hour in dressing her. 
She managed to loosen the wavy masses of fair hair and tie them 
into a bunch of curls. One of Lilith’s Indian muslin fichus was 
gracefully looped about as much of the velvety neck — which Mrs. 
Drew had rigidly concealed during all these long years of single yet 


56 


A womak’s loye-stoky, ^ ^ 

wedded life— as the girl could manage to show without the lady's, 
discoveiing how far her bodice was pinned back. Then came AYil- 
lie’s rose spray. While this was being arranged, Mrs. Drew said-^ 

“ But 1 look as if 1 were out ot mourning!” 

It was a delicate way of saying that her youthful beauty startled 
her. 

At tills juncture Priscilla produced a shawl ot neutral tint, lent 
by Mrs. Macdonald ; then all was hurry. At the dinner-table Mrs, 
Law's attention was completely absorbed by une or two failures 
made by the cook. So she merely felt vaguely that Mrs. Drew was 
very smartly dressed for a widow, and that there was a festive ex- 
citement in the air. 

A little later the carriage was announced. Willie briefly explained, 
and the three drove off to the theater before the old people recog- 
nized what was going forward. 

This driving through the brightly-lit streets, dreamily listening to 
the chatter and laughter ot the two cheerful young voices, while the 
delicate white-rose odor crept about her nostrils, seemed new, yet 
familiar, to Mrs. Drew. It had been an unpleasant step to take, 
this visiting a tlicater. Almost by means of theateis her life had 
been crushed. But her conscience was so pure, so content, that she 
enjoyed life’s trifles as only those who are pure in heart can enjoy 
them. • 

As they alighted at the theater, she stopped and glanced round 
her, looking like some beautiful hot-house flower suddenly trans- 
ported there upon the pavement, among the squalid or dirty passers- 
by. Mrs. Drew reminded one of flowers, of beautiful works of art 
—just as Lilith reminded one of rough furze-bushes, or weird trees 
growing askew, or of anything in nafure uncouth and curious. Ke- 
marks were freely circulating, so Willie hurried the ladies in, and 
was glad when they were safely seated. 

lire crimson house — with frescoes and a painted ceiling which 
Lilith began to inspect through Willie’s opera glasses at once— was 
still half lighted. There was no farce. This was one of Master- 
ton’s innovations. Masterton was the new Shakesperean star. < 

” No one seems to know exactly how the man jumped into popu- 
larity,” said Willie, as the gas was .turned up and the orchestra be- 
gan a fitting prelude to the woeful love-story of Romeo and his Ju- 
liet. ” There are as many stories about him as about the new Ju- 
liet, Miss Urd — yes, that is the name— too ugly a one to be assumed/'’ 

” And pray what stories are they?” asked Mrs. Drew. 

” Oh, nothing against her, save that she had some nervous com- 
plaint wLich prevented her appearance in public! Her life was 
therefore a hard one, till she had a severe mental shock, which, 
strangely enough, restored her — completely cured the defect, what- 
ever it was.” 

Here the curtain drew up, and Lilith, wLo looked rather more at- 
tractive in her black lace dress and with her hair damped into a cer- 
tain Orderliness, leaned over and said, “ Oh!” 

It was the first stage-picture she had seen. It took her breath away 
until the men in their quaint dresses began to speak; then their nine- 
teenth-century voices, not ot the highest class, iDroke the spell. This 
was a stage, these were actors — this was not another world. 


A woman's loye-story. 


5? 


Mrs. Drew had been stirred — she hardly knew why — by something 
'ihat Willie had said. She forgot the transient emotion while study- 
ing her child. It was delightful to watch the action ot the stage 
illustrated by the fleeting expressions upon Lilith's lace. 

But presently was heard a slight round of applause. Juliet came 
In, a slim giilish creature with great dark eyes and a mass of black 
hair. There were a grace and an intensity in the Soutliern-Iooaing 
girl which from the first had not tailed to captivate her audiences. 
Her neck and arms tvere veiled by a gossamer drapery which only 
those with very sharp eyes or a first-rate glass had noticed. Willie 
said very sympathetically to Mrs. Drew — - 

“ Poor girl, she is not well even yet! Splendidly made up though 
she is, don’t you see how hollow her cheeks are?” 

Mrs. Drew watched her, silently accepting Willie’s lorgnette. As 
she noticed Juliet’s winning archness, as she heard the soft sweet 
tones of a voice that people strained to catch — it was sometimes very 
low, as if from girlish modesty, or a 'fragility suggested by Miss 
Urd’s stillness — so instinctively she felt that she had of late heard a 
voice or voices that had affected her which had the plaintive sweet- 
ness ot this. Then she happened to look aside — at a box where two 
fair children were leaning over, watching each movement on the 
stage and absorbed in the performance. 

No sooner did she see this than a white mist grew up all around. 
She had gone away, as it were, into some state where there was 
nothing. She did not hear, see, feel, think, till suddenly Willie 
Macdonald grew out of the mist, and she. heard the word ” ill.” In 
a moment she was able to whisper — 

“ The heal! But 1 cannot stay — 1 must not.” 

The pleading, agonized look in her beautiful eyes told Willie that 
some contretemps had occurred. 

” Of course we must go, and at once,” he said. . 

Then he nudged Lilith, who was too dazed with this novel theat- 
rical experience to notice her mother’s deadly pallor. She soon 
found out, though, that her darling mother was tired, ill, and was 
hastening to her — Mrs. Drew was leaning against the open box door, 
reviving in the cool air — when Willie peremptorily stopped her. 

” Y'our mother must not be interfered with or spoken to to- 
night, ” he said. “Don’t notice anything; leave her to herself as 
much as possible. ” 

Then he turned to Mrs. Drew, wrapped her carefully in Mrs. Mac- 
donald’s mournful gray shawl, and, saying, “ Follow us, dear, 
please,” to jLiilitb, led her along the passages. He stayed at the 
buffet to get a glass of water. How he mentally cursed his foolery 
a minute afterward! A little boy, fantastically dressed, with long 
curls, ran up to Mrs. Drew. 

“Oh, it is the lady! I said it was; didn’t I, Florrie?” — to 
a delicate little dark-haired damsel who gravely held the hand 
of the elderly nurse or servant in charge. “ Please kiss me;” 
and, before the horror-stricken illie Macdonald, who read what 
this meant in Mrs. Drew’s white face, could prevent him, he had 
thrown his arms round her neck and had kissed her lips. “ The 
watch is going beautifully,” he said, nodding his curly head. “ And 
doesn’t mamma act w’ell? What — Oh, don’t go away ! In the last 


58 A woman’s love-story/ 

scene she makes people cry like anything, and Mr. Masterton said 
he had two real tears in bis eyes, but they didn’t get out because of 
the paint; and Florrie and 1 counted twenty-three handkei chiefs out 
at the same time, and seven of them were men in the stalls— there!”" 

** We will see your mamma in the last act another day, little 
man,” said W’illie" hurr^nng Mrs. Drew and Lilith away down the 
stairs. 

Then he found a secluded corner for them while he rushed wild- 
ly for a four-wheeled cab. Of course the brougham would not be 
in waiting; but he soon returned with a cab, and they were driven 
back to Prince’s Square under the quiet stars. 

.What did this mean? Willie felt that understand Mrs. Drew and 
Lilith’s life he would, unless Mrs. Drew would not give him her 
sympathy. Then of course he must look on in the dark. 

” When a man meets a saintly martyr whose influence may kill ali 
that there is mean and bad in him, then he ought to recognize the 
fact, and be grateful to Heaven for the meeting,” he said to him- 
self. 

Perhaps never in his life had the good-natured young fellow felt 
so exalte as he did, leaning back with folded arms in the corner of 
the old cab. He felt religious, strong to fight, chivalrous, with a 
self-sacrificing devotion. 

The house was already dimly lighted as the cab drew up at the 
door. James, who opened it, said sleepily that, the master seeming 
tired, Mrs. Law ordered prayers at nine, and everybody was in bed. 
A little supper was laid out in the dining-room. Willie, opening- 
papers and letters that had arrived by the last post, talked almost 
boisterously. While the pretense of supper was proceeding, he man- 
aged to suggest that somewhat of a crisis seemed to have occurred 
in India, according to the Indian papers, which might seriously af- 
fect his uncle’s property on the south coast. He would like Mrs. 
Drew’s advice before he told his aunt, Mrs. Law, next morning. 

** I know 'you thoroughly understand these naatters,” he said, 

” for 1 have heard that you advise Squire Ware in mat ters connected 
with the estate. Can you spare me a few minutes now?” 

Both Mrs. Drew and Lilith were in too emotional a state to sus- 
pect ruses. Lilith had guessed the cause of the night’s misery to» 
her mother; bur, she was shy of showing sympathy; so she meekly 
retired, volunteering to tell Priscilla that she must wait a few min- 
utes to undress her mother. 

Willie was alone with Mis. Drew. Mrs. Drew sat back in her 
chair. She was in the state of temporary exhaustion that follows 
fainting. She looked like some lovely lily which had been trodden 
under foot The white roses on her breast were crushed, the green 
leaves withered. 

Alone with ” St. Catharine,” Willie suddenly felt sh}^ and stupid. 
He was thoroughly embarrassed, grew red, then blurted out — 

” Excuse me, Mrs. Drew; but I am so deeply interested in Lilith 
that I wanted to tell you so. People aon’t understand her. She' 
wants, as it were, a faithful knight to watch her life and to call for 
help when needed. Neither my aunt nor my mother can do this. 
WeU, 1 am ready to do anything — for her — and for you. Oh, it 
does not need much sharp-sightedness to see into your life! But,. 


A woman’s loye story. 59 

pardon me, 1 ought not to have alluded to such private and sacred 
matters/' 

“ 1 dare say you liave heard my story; so there is no reason to re- 
peat it,’' said Mrs. Drew, with quiet dignity. But I may tell you 
that 1 recognized — with surprise— persons in the theater to-night that 
1 little dreamt to see. Ko, there is nothing you can do for me” — 
for she saw Willie was about to speak, and prevented him — ” noth- 
ing but notice how Lilith gets on, and see that 1 am summoned at 
once it she gets into trouble again.” 

“ Oh, she will not do that, Mrs. Drew!” 

Willie burst into enthusiastic praise of Lilith. As he said more 
and spoke more strongly than he had known it was in his mind to 
speak, Mrs. Drew smiled faintly. A slight color came back to her 
cheek. 

“Ah! you must come and see us in the holidays, ” said Mrs. 
Drew. “ You and Lilith will be even better companiuus at the old 
Hall.” Then she rose and wished him good-niaht. “ 1 know! 
may trust you,” she said, leaving her Hand in bis, and looking earn- 
estly into his eyes. It seemed such a serious, so terrible a thing al- 
most, to encourage any feeling, however brotherly, that might end 
in this young man’s loving Lilith. 

‘‘You may trust me till death, Mrs. Drew!” said Willie, with a 
certain passion which the occasion scarcely warranted, and which 
shook Mrs. Drew’s confidence in her own opinion somewhat as she 
went gently upstairs. 

What if WUiie were already 'vvhat they called ” in love ” with Lil- 
ith? The rector had suggested the possibility to her. 

Oh, no; she would not worry about such an improbability! Lilith 
—-only fifteen, and so cuiious-looking, so ungainly! Mrs. Drew 
slept peacefully. She had suffered to-night, and the pain, patiently 
borne, was over. She had done her dutj to Lilith, and she earnest- 
ly hoped and believed, to Willie Macdonald also. What reason was 
there that she should not sleep? 

But with Willie Macdonald it was otherwise. He had been in an 
emotional state all day. , When he was rushing about- for the box 
for the theater, he said stupid things, and found ‘^ut he was talking 
nonsense only by the polite surprise and suppressed smiles of those 
to whoni'he spoke. Now, as Mrs. Drew left him, he went and threw 
himself into one of the high-backed dining-room arm-chairs, and 
there ho remained for a full half-hour— not thinking, not dreaming 
— no, remembering. He, went over each hour in the day— his sur- 
prise when he saw Lilith’s mother, his uncomfortable tongue-tied 
sensation at luncheon, his sudden awkwardness, and his anxiety to 
appear at his best in her presence, his inordinate dread that she 
would not go to the theater, his fear taat she would despise his tea, 
his anxious fastidious choice of those roses, his wild appeal to the 
totally innocent Lilith to persuade— no, to insist upon her mother’s 
going to the theater. He recollected the delightful sensation when 
she came into the drawing-room, looking like some seraphic being, 
with dear Lilith on her arm. Fancy asking him to look after Lilith, 
when she would be his first care, his first thought in life! Then he 
recollected every beautiful pose, every graceful attitude. But moods 
have their rebounds, buddenly some thought— he haidly Knew 


60 


A woman’s love-story. 

what — startled him. He cast his mood aside as if it had stung him. 

One would think I was a raw unfledged boy!” he said to him- 
self angrily; and iie put out the lights and went to bed— but not to 
sleep. His disgust to find himself rhapsodical kept him awake till 
daybreak. 


CHAPTER X. 

The train was speeding fast through the^ich summer morning. 
London, with its halo of black smoke, was far back in the distance. 

Mrs. IDrew was alone in a first-class compartment. Sue leaned 
back thinking — dreaming a little perhaps. She looked very sweet 
and sad, her delicate face more tenderly youthful in contrast to her 
mourning-dress, and in relief against the dark cloth of the railway- 
carriage. 

Outside the columns of white steam fled up gayly into the sunshine. 
The rills rippled brightly through the meadows, the yellow corn 
stood tall, basking in the sun. Cottages glared white, dotted here 
and there, and now and then the train went puffing through an 
orchard, where the overladen apple-boughs lay propped above the 
grass and the pear-gatherers were busy. Then they would pjiss 
some quiet copse where the trees seemed drooping, as if in com- 
munion with their own shadows. 

The thought came to Mrs. Drew ; she likened these silently- grow- 
ing trees to herself. “ 1 have no one in the world,” she told heiseif, 
” no one to tell my troubles to, to lean upon, except it be my own 
shadow, my thoughts. ” 

The tears welled up and fell. Still she, a self-blamer by nature, 
could scarcely blame herself lor these, after the terrible emotiou of 
the preceding night, when she had not only to see and hear the 
actress for whom her husband had forsaken her, byit had to accept 
acquaintanceship with the children of her dea^ husband and another 
woman. 

. Some women would have been almost crazy in the circumstances. 
But Lilian Drew had borne her husband’s desertion years before 
calmly — so calmly that she had never raised a finger to beckon him 
back. Then he died. She had borne his death calmly also. 

But some change had come over her; and since the day before she 
had felt depressed, dissatisfied. As she looked out into the fullness 
of nature in her summer phase, she felt as if everything in the world 
were of some use except herself. 

Those she had left in London did not want her. Lilith, with her 
new hopes, aspirations, and struggles, was, as it were, launched, to 
struggle alone. Her husband’s son — she had felt a curious yearning 
for the boy, and the moment he hads kissed her was an emotional 
moment — had his own mother, whom he had lauded to her in hia 
unsuspecting innocence. Then the girls, his sisters— what a curious 
position hers was in regard to these! 

Yet the more Mrs, Drew thought, the more she determined that 
these children had a strong claim upon her— had she felt and acted 
differently long before, they might not have been born. To be just 
to them would entail much pain, much suffering to herself, per- 


A woman’s loye-stoky. 61 

haps. But she fancied it her duty that all should be done for these 
as if they were her own. 

Then she thought ot Lilith and of Willie Macdonald. What if 
they should come to be nearer and dearer to each other? She had 
seen some extra interest in Willie’s manner. “ By and by he may 
love her,” she thought, with a wistful, almost yearning recollection 
of the geuial handsome face that looked so sympathetic, so earnestly 
kind. And she? Oh, when Lilith loves, it will be in that devour- 
ing passionate way her father loved — that — w^oman!” 

Back at the old townlet, Mrs. Drew felt quieted, more confident. 
The Rector was standing on the platform, awaiting the train with 
an anxious look, she thought. She went up to him, bag in hand. 
He smiled as she came up, seized her bag, and in a minute he was 
driving her home. 

There was nothing wrong, he assured her, as they drove through 
the lanes, under the tall trees, save that, since she" left, the squire 
had seemed fidgety and anxious. Madam Ware's calm content had 
irritated rather than quieted him. 

“ Last night 1 dined there,” continued the Rector. “ He talked 
ot nothing but Lilith. ‘ Some harm was coming to the lass, alone 
in that crowded London,’ was his fixed notion. I did not argue 
with him— 1 seldom do. But 1 did persuade him not to stand under 
the broiling sun in the harvest-field at noonday, with onlj' his felt 
hat to protect him from the rays. Y'ou Know his tendency to apo- 
plexy. He ought to have one of those white Indian helmets.” 

‘ ‘ Or a straw — a Panama— with a cabbage-leaf inside, and a pug- 
garee. I must see what 1 can do,” said Mrs. Drew energetically. 
The piactical details of home were already scaring away her dreamy 
mood. 

” Then there is something else that is worrying him,” continued 
the Rector. “Colonel Ware has returned from the East, and 
threatens him with a visit. What a dislike he seems to have for 
that heir of his! Is it personal, or only because the colonel must 
take the entailed property and you will have corapaiatively noth- 
ing?” 

“Oh, it is that, most ceitainlyl” said Lilian Drew. “1 saw 
Geoffrey Ware only once. He was tall, imposing, and, to me, a 
girl of ten, seemed almost old. 1 remember, when he was going 
away, he took me up, called me ‘ little cousin,’ and, saying 1 must 
go to him if ever 1 wanted protection or a friend, kissed me. My 
dignity was hurt more than my cheek was by his rough mustache. 
1 told him 1 did not want his protection ; 1 had mj^ father to take 
care of me. He gave me a strange look, half amused, half sad. 
Then he turjied away, mounted his big horse, and rode off. These 
little incidents impress children, you know; 1 can remember him 
distinctly. There is nothing to dislike in him— of that 1 am sure!” 

The Rector, who had thoughtfully flicked his cob with his whip 
while Lilian Drew was speaking, said — 

“Yet last night, when we were smoking among your favorite 
roses, all your father’s talk was how to cut off the entail. He wants 
you and Lilith to have the Hall at any price.” 

“ 1 cannot have anything of that sort,” replied Mrs. Drew, red- 


62 


A WOMAlSr’S LOYE-6TORY, 

deniD.2(. ** I do not care where I live so long as 1 am at peace, and 
1 cannot be at peace if 1 am unjust to any oue/’_ 

She meant what she said. Still the old park had seldom seemed 
so dear to her as when they drove through the gates. The slopes 
lay basking in the sun. The great oaks spread grandly over the 
beds ol bracken. The deers’ horns and short switching tails quiv- 
ered in the distance, where the herd had gathered under the shade 
of a covert. Then they turned a corner, and the gray old walls 
fronted them. Her ^lome ot the past, but not of the future! How 
many may have felt as Lilian Drew felt at that moment, as if a 
simple cottage would have been a better childhood’s shelter, if it 
might have remained home to the end! 

“ Anyhow 1 will be buried here in oar vault — in the church,” she 
said. 

Then the Hector knew that Mrs. Drew might object on principle 
to any selfish arrangement being made on her account, but that she 
felt much as any other woman would have felt in her position, only 
she did not know it. 

So, rapidly thinking, he determined to have a talk with her. 

” The girls and their mother are so anxious to see you again,” he 
suggested. ” Come over to-morrow and see the butter-making 
and the apple-picking. The orchard is fine, ‘ although 1 say so as 
shouldn’l,’ as the villagers say.” 

Lilian acquiesced as they stopped at the door, where Mr. Hawson 
left her. 

How peaceful was the great Hall, with the slowly-ticking clock, 
and a bumble-bee who had made his way in from the hot flower- 
garden buzzing and booming sleepily as he. drowsily sought an exit! 
As she went along the corridor to her mother’s little sitting-room, 
the lowered blinds moved to and fro in the breeze, and she saw her 
own flower-garden, a blaze of dahlias, hollyhocks, and late roses, 
and, beyond, the wigwam and the tall poplars. Opening the door 
gently, there was her mother in her little old-fashioned chair in the 
low-ceiled room with the huge cupboards. This had been the 
housekeeper’s room in former times. But, when the squire brought 
his gentle little wife home, she had pleaded tor this because it was 
like ” mother’s room ” in the Yicarage, and she had her little whim. 
Lilian remembered ” doing her lessons ” in this room with the quaint 
chintz furniture, an old wheezy spaniel basking in the sunshine or . 
firelight, and some kitten at play. She remembered biting her pen 
and looking out wistfully into the green paik, as if she could learn 
from the waving boughs' or ot the sleek cows grazing in the deep 
grass. She remembered the housekeeper coming in and whispering 
to Madam Ware so as not to disturb Miss Lilian at her lessons, and 
the big cupboards being open, where all the juicy preserves and 
savory potted meats, besides mincemeats, conserves, rich cakes, and 
light biscuits, were stored. . There were the old booK-shelves, 'where 
Madam Ware’s schoolbooks and prizes, and a few volumes such as 
” Hasselas,” “Evenings at home,” “ Sandford and Merton,” and 
other light literature tor the young, were ranged. To-day the recol- 
lection that all these memories must be effaced by the occupancy ot 
the colonel with the rough mustache— perhaps with an Indian wife 
and a family of dark children — gave her a pang. Mrs. Drew went 


63 


A woman’s love-story. 

to her mother and embraced her more tender!}^ than ever. She 
fancied, as the little deaf mother took off her spectacles and began a 
string of inquiries about Lilith, that the withered cheeks were cold 
and pale. But Madam Ware stoutly defended herself on the score 
of health. 

“ Now if it was your father, my dear,'* she went on; and Lilian 
had to listen to a long account ot his carelessness, which seemed so 
senseless, provoking serious illness when he was so exasperated at 
the idea of a visit from his nephew, or indeed at the idea of Colonel 
Ware at all. “You see, it is so contradictory, my love,” said Madam 
Ware, who had resumed her glasses, and was settling herself to her 
fine plain work. “We all know the Almighty allows but threescore 
years and ten at the utmost. Your father is nigh upon that, for he 
was a man in yeais when we married. Yet one would think, with 
his fads and reckless ways, he wanted to get off sooner and miake 
w% for Geoffrey, i bear no grudge to the poor lad — he used to 
come here and enjoy his life— he hadn’t much of a home — when 
you were in long clothes. But, as sure as he comes to live here, 
you and the dear child must turn out. What d’ye say? I turn 
out? 1 shall soon follow your father, dear. 1 thought that the 
other day, when they rooted up those two poplars which spoiled the 
path. They wanted to take up only one; bat their roots had got 
twined, and they seemed to have but one bit of ground between ’em; 
so, when one fell, the other toppled over, and it was a business for 
the men to get away in time, not to be hurt. Yes, your father is 
down broiling his poor head among the harvesters.” 

“ 1 will go to him,” said Lilian. 

First she went to the garret, where great chests of unused gar- 
ments were kept, and routed and searched in the stuffy chamber 
till she found the Panama hat. Then she went to her room and 
covered it wiih a long piece of Indian muslin; then to the kitchen 
for a cool, firm, dewy cabbage-leaf. Then she took an umbrella, 
and w^ent bravely through the hot dusty fields. The squire pre- 
tended not to care for her appearance, and asked what that gim- 
crack thing was. However, she dared his possible anger and saucily 
tossed oft his hat, and, jumping up, crowned him with her bit of 
workmanship. 

He stood a moment surprised; then, to her dismay, tears came 
into his eyes. 

“ Ay, my day’s over; you’re all of ye- taking advantage qf me!” 
he stammered. “ Here are the men all contradicting me, and as lazy 
as goodness knows what! We shall never get tne harvest in at this 
rate. Then up comes my daughter and makes me a Tom Fool, like 
I used to see them at the booth in the fair. Ah, 1 haven’t the pluck 
to scold you for your impudence — that 1 haven’t ! Here, take me 
home; a stick ain’t enough to hold up my old bones now! 1 have 
come to lean upon the arm of a gal,” he went on mournfully, as 
Lilian coaxed him over the stubble toward the gate into the lane— 
“ the arm of a gal, and not upon a right-down big mottled limb, like 
wenches had in my days, but a poor little thin splinter. Then I’m 
a regular target for the railway-telegrapbs; they make a butt of me, 
they do. Here’s one!” he said, stopping short with a disgusted ex- 
pression, and pulling out a crumpled yellow envelope. “ Read that! 


64 


A womak’s love-story* 

Lucky for him yoa’re at home! 1 don’t mean to have anything to 
do with him. You’re of age, and can do as you please.” 

Lilian read a telegram from Colonel Geoffrey Ware to his uncle, 
which informed the squire that his nephew had just returned from 
the East, and would run down to see his uncle ‘‘ on the day after 
to-morrow, if convenient.*’ 

“ 1 suppose you sent an answer?” asked Mrs. Drew. 

” I wrote on the paper they brought me, * Do as you like. We 
old folks ain’t of any account nowadays.’ ” 

‘ Then 1 think he won’t come,” said Lilian. ” 1 wish you had 
not been quite so — so abrupt,” she added. . 

“ Oh, then you want to see the man wdio’s going to turn you 
out?” said the squire. “You women are queer animals! I'll be 
bound you’ll make a fuss with the fellow — hang upon him and flat- 
ter hini as soon as my coffin’s in the old vault! Oh, yes! What’s 
that they used to say? ‘ The king is dead — long live the king!’ 

Mrs. Drew managed to “ talk over ” her father, ana left him in 
his smoking-room, with his favorite long pipe and a fresh copy of 
the “ County Gazette,” to go to her mother. She had seen by the 
telegram that her cousin the colonel was to nrrive that day. Madam 
Ware knew nothing of the telegram. However, she had adaptable 
tnaid-servants, and pure white sheets smelling of lavender were soon 
upon the big bed in the state guest room. The summer w'ind was 
blowing in at the window. The gardener had to cut flowers; and, 
before Mrs. Drew joined her mother for a cup of tea, the room to 
be occupied by the colonel was in perfect oider. 

Feeling dusty after her journey, and wishing to be on the spot 
when the colonel arrived, lest he should be received by her deaf 
mother— to whom it was still a trouble to be misunderstood or 
bawded at — Mrs. Drew went to her room to change her dress. Mary 
Was unpacking her bag, and was looking wonderingly at a mass of 
withered flowers. It was unlike her mistress to pack away such 
“ muck,” she was thinking. 

“1 see Miss Lilith packed your bag for you, ma’am,” she ob- 
served, with a smile. 

“Ko. ’’said Mrs. Drew. Although she blushed, she took the 
dead roses from Mary’s hands, and laid them carefully on her writ- 
ing-table, telling the maid to bring her one of the white dresses, 
“It is so hot that I think 1 may indulge myself in a cool dress with 
a broad black sash to-night, Mary,” she said, in the usual confiden- 
tial manner she adopted toward the faithful nurse. 

As she dressed, she told Mary much about her nursling, Lilith. 
But, when Mary was dismissed, those puzzling dead flowers were 
still on the writing-table, unaccounted for. 

“ Slie can’t paint them dead things, sure-ly!” thought Mary, as 
she went back to the housekeeper’s room, wondering what they were 
—what they signified. 

To Lilian Drew they were a memento of that yesterday which she 
believed to be a crisis in her life, because it had awakened stronger 
feeling than she had yet known — how or why she thought, as she 
locked away the faded flowers, she could not tell. 

** We are all mysteries,” she mused, as she went down to stroll 


A woman’s lote-story* 65 

toward her favorite haunts, “ but, most of all, mysteries to our^ 
selves.” 

The garden was basking in the sun. The terraces, with their 
flower-stands, were glaring to the eyes, as Mrs. Drew passed out. 
Shading her eyes with her parasol, ahe saw the heat rising giddily 
between her and the poplars. She turneH away from the garden, 
find took the path to the shrubbery. No one could drive from the 
station to the Hail without passing the shrubbery. The dog-cart 
sent to the station to be in waiting for Colonel Ware must pass here; 
but, as the carriage-road took a curve and diverged, she would have 
time to lie in the Hall to receive her cousin, if she hastened back 
through the garden. 

The shrubbery was cool, a very grove for meditation. Moist 
mosses clung to the tree trunks. The thickest boughs that overhung 
the path had so many sister-boughs above them that they could never 
have seen the sun; nor could the tall green ferns, nor the myriads 
of tiny flowers which had survived the lovely blossoms that spring 
had carried away with her when she abdicated in favor of hot sum- 
mer. The stuuly nut-trees were dotted over with green nuts, the 
blackberries wei*e reddening among the thorns. Then came a break 
3n the wood; some big trees hadTbeen felled — their planed trunks 
■were woodland seats. There w^as a grass-plot of tall grass, with 
some beds of half-teDded wild-flowei’s. Lilith and her moTher would 
let no scythe, pruning-knife, or scissors transform their “ wilder- 
ness,” as the}^ called it, into trim garden-land. The tending of this 
grove "was done by their own hands. From here there was visible a 
realhv" English landscape — flrst, the park, with tall trees, then slop- 
ping flelds; beyond, hazy lilac hills. 

Mrs. Drew seated herself on one of the planed trunks. To be 
here, where she had thought, and remembered, and dreamed her 
more than widowed life, was, after the previous day’s whirl and to- 
day’s action, like sudden rest to one over-straineS, over- fatigued, 
-'almost a pain at flrst. But in a few minutes she felt how good w^as 
her quiet drifting to the human being’s natui-al end — here, where she 
was born,' where she had lived her calm girl-life, and where she had 
endured her mamed sorrow. It seemed impossible to her that She 
should ever, in life, leave this nest. 

“ Yet yesterday, until 1 was tortured at^the theater, 1 thought 
there was brightness, happiness in London life,” she reflected, 
ashamed. ” l"^have not valued this enough. But 1 shall now.” 

She had been shading herself with her parasol. But the sun was 
already sinking to the level of the hills opposite, and the air had 
perceptibly cooled. So she shut her parasol, and, as she did so, 
lose, for she saw she was not alone in the “ wilderness.” A man 
was standing leaning against a tree that bordered the grass-plot. He 
was neatly but somevvhat shabbily dressed. He was tall, stout, 
middle-aged, with white hair and mustache. The empty sleeve 
looped up, the military bearing, a certain familiarity m the profile — 
ior he was gazing out into the paik— told Mrs. Drew that this was 
the expected guest. 

‘‘ Colonel Ware— Cousin Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, going across 
to him witb extended hand. 

There is always greater sweetness in self- conquerors; and the 
*8 


66 


A womak’s LOVE-STOET. ■ 


travel-worn, tired man— who was himself performing a scarcely 
agreeable duty in this early visit to Heathside — thought the greeting; 
of this slight fragile woman with the pensive resigned face ther 
sweetest welcome he had had for many a long year. 

“Lilian!” he said, just touching her hand respectfully with hi& 
lips. “ The little girl#who was so greatly offended because I 
thought she might possibly require the services of some one besides, 
the squire! Remembering what you were, 1 was quite taken aback- 
when 1 saw you in deep meditation under j^our parasol. 1 thought, 
the parasol would move dr slip aside; but no! 1 have^been con- 
templating the lines and spike of a parasol for the last ten minutes. 
*— a thing 1 never did in my life before. Well, how is the squire? V 

“ Oh, well — as well as usual!” said Mrs. Drew— they were walk-^ 
ing along the i)ath toward the house. “A little startled by your 
telegram perhaps,” she continued diplomatically. “He dislikes 
innovations — railwaj^s, electi icily. It is a positive grief to him that 
the Highflyer coach no longer plies between Westtown and London. 
He groans whenever he looks at the pictures of the dashing equi- 
page with the four thoroughbreds which hang in his smoking-room;, 
and people who know him don’t send him telegrams if they can helpr 

Well, that is a relief so far,” remarked the colonel. “ Really,. 
1 assure you, yoilf father sent me such a strange telegram that 1 
came down here believing he hated the sight of me, and therefore; 
skulked toward the house under covert, leaving my man and your- 
groom discussing a glass of beer at the Railway Inn, with strict in- 
junctions not to follow for at least half an hour. Now is your 
father offended because 1 have not written all these years? You. 
know men baking under a tropical sun are not good correspondents, 
and 1 always believed he distrusted me.” 

“ Oh, it is not that!” said Lilian. 

She spoke hastily, and betrayed herself. She blushed. How 
could she repair her mistake? There was silence for a minute; 
then the colonel, opening the gate with his one arm — the right— said- 
dry ly— 

“ 1 understand, Mrs. Drew: but surely you and your mother, who* 
was so good to me, trust me?” 

“ Trust you? Of course.” Mrs. Drew was crimson now. “ You. 
are to succeed us here, and we have the proper feeling for our heir. 
But,” she continued warmly, “ you cannot expect us not to connect 
you with the idea of my father’s death. He must die—his cofiiii- 
must come empty into the Hall, and be carried away full to the* 
vault— before we can see you head of everything here.” 

“Well, who said 1 could be head of everylhing here?” said the 
colonel somewhat brusquely, standing between Lilian and the nar- 
row path that led to the terraces, so that she must either make a, 
rush across a bed of young lettuces or stop short. “ Do you think a 
man who has led an active military life wants to turn farmer and to 
stagnate? 1 can assure you 1 have no taste for vegetation. 1 am 
an heir against my will; and it is just to see what can be legal Ij!^ 
done to exclude my life-interest in this estate that 1 have comet 
to-day. Before 1 leave, the affair will be righted.” 


A woman’s love-stoey. 67 

' ■‘‘Eighted? But your wife, your children?’^ asked Mrs. Drew, 
puzzled and scmeprbat discomfited. 

“Madam, with all due respect to your charming sex, I am a 
?iappy bachelor,” said the colonel, “ and 1 expect to remain so. 
But reall3%” he added, changing his tone, “ 1 did not expect to 
arrive primed with a declaration of my intentions, or with a species 
30f challenge. Let us talk the matter over, you and 1— the co heirs 
— by ourselves. The squire is hale and hearty — he will last long, 
please Heaven! We are the old people’s props, their children.” 

Lilian held out her hand and looked gratefully at this fraternal 
cousin. He clasped her hand, dropped it, and they went into the 
liouse. 

“ Here is our own particular hat stand, cousin,” said Lilian, as 
they entered the liouse by the garden-door. “ 1 will go and see 
^"h ere they are. ” 

Then she smiled at him and went off quickly with her elastic step. 
Bhe had long forbidden herself to run, as unbefitting her matron- 
hood. But, as the colonel looked after her, he recognized the child 
Bilian in the slight figure with the small well-molded head that 
went flitting along the corridor into the shadow. 

“ She is as little changed as the dear old home itself,” bethought, 
as he walked into the quiet hall, and recognized#iie old clock with 
its steady solemn lick, the cases of stuffed birds, the faded pictures 
— even tlie slim red fox that had always seemed to look down spile- 
i'ully upon him from his perch above the old oak book-case. 

Home — home — wdiat a beautiful word! Best, peace, content, 
3ove — but not for me,” he added, resolutely, buttoning his coat and 
preparing himself for the meeting with “ the squire and madam ” 
—“not for me!” 


CHAPTER XI. 

Madam Ware received her husband’s nephew ceremoniously in 
the drawing-room with the high-backed chairs. He entered with 
liis military semi-abruptness. It was like walking back into child- 
hood, He remembered playing with the cat all about those ottomans 
•and tables laden with china, and how a sudden spring of the cat 
knocked off a beautiful Sevres cup, and INladam Ware, then but a 
slim girl in pink muslin, came in with her baby on her arm, sat 
down on an ottoman, and chided him gently in a hushed voice, lest 
Baby Lilian should awake. He could see it all, though thirty-odd 
y^ears had passed— the pink face, and tiny hands of the sleeping 
haby, the cat crouching under the heavy folds of the curtain, the 
shell-like fragments of tne broken cup on the thick carpet, the fam- 
ily portraits frowning on the walls, and the girl-mother whose 
^jnaint gentle ways made him much more afraid of her than he was 
of his head-master at’ school. 

Could that little lady, looking so much older than she really was 
In her straight black satin gown and big cap tied under her chin, be 
that vision in the pink muslin? She was as much like it as Mrs. 
Drew w^as like the sleeping babe. 

Madam Ware, wlio w^as alone, rose from her seat, and, advancing 


68 A WOMAK'S LOYE-SXaKY. 

a few steps, said a few kind words of welcome. Then she drew s: 
chair near to hers, and, motioning him to be seated, said — 

“ 1 do not think 1 should have known you, Geoffrey.’' 

“ Nor 1 you,” he said. “ And my cousin— she is changed too.’* 

“ Ot course you have heard all about her unfortunate marriage?’* 

Geoffrey Ware confessed that he had. He knew that Lilian had 
been heartlessly deserted; that she had lived wHh her parents while 
her husband was publicly owning a second family abroad; and that 
” the man ” who had disgraced his manhood and degraded his mili- 
tary calling was dead. 

“The fellow is dead,” he said, in a contemptuous tone. “At 
least you have that consolation.” 

“ Oh. dear!” returned Madam Ware, distressed. “1 hope you 
will never, on any account, speak like that to Lilian. She will not 
have her husband disparaged. She is right, of course. And pray 
do not speak to the squire in that way; he felt it all so very much,, 
and, if anything happens to remind him ol it, he is setoff, as it 
were—” 

“ Hush!” said the colonel. He had heard footsteps on the terrace 
which were inaudible to deaf Madam Ware. 

Lilian Drew and her father came in together through the long: 
window. The sqqjre looked half angry, half pleased ; "Mrs. Drew 
was smiling. Their interyiew had been almost comical. The 
squire’s dislike to the man who must succeed him was no stronger' 
than the natural philanthropy which was generally concealed by his 
irritabilit}^ and gruffness; so that he had alternately said he had 
“ no grudge against poor Davie’s boy— just the reverse ” — but that 
he felt as if “the sight of the fellow” would give him “aflt.’*^ 
When Mrs. Drew told her father Colonel Ware’s ideas, he softened 
utterly, and muttered that nothing should induce him to hear of 
such stuff and nonsense. Cut off the entail indeed! As if he would 
be a party to such dirt cast upon his brother’s memory! “ A Ware 
is a Ware, when all’s said and done,” he said; “and, as for you 
gals, why, it’s your misfortune that you've been born gals, and ta 
grumble would be to fly in the face of the Alrnighty; so you’ve got 
to grin and bear it, and make the best ot a bad job.” 

At these words Mrs. Drew, inwardly triumphant that the squire 
was in a fitting mood to meet the colonel, hung her head and said 
that that was exactly how she felt. 

“ Women must expect to be second in the race,” she had said, as 
they were nearing the window; “ and, when they are content to be 
so, they may be quite satisfied that Ihey will be taken care ot.” 

“ At all events, you and the child will,” said the squire energetic- 
ally. 

Then he went off across the drawing-room and held out his hand* 
He gave Geoffrey’s hand a hearty shake; then he said — 

“ Well, you’re about as much like poor Davie as Lilian’s like me. 

1 say, madam,” he went on, raising his voice, “ just look at theso 
two here! Here — this big burly fellow” — slapping his back — 
“ don’c wince at a clout which would ha’ knocked his father over^ 
and I— who’d ha’ made six of Davie— 1 own this poor pale pretty- 
wench! Oh, yes, you’re pretty enough, my girl,” he said, drawing: 
her hand within his arm — “ too pretty perhaps! It ain’t the pretty 


A avoman’s loye-story. 

ones as do the best tor themselves. 1 was only thinking, that folks^ 
would have guessed our tine colonel yonder to be mine, and you— 
Davie’s. But that’s the way of the world— all askew!” 

” But all comes right in the end, uncle,” put in the colonel, in hi^ 
sonorous voice. 

He Avas relieved, gratified at his reception; and when dinner was- 
announced he escorted his aunt — who had always wanted an arm to 
lean on since she broke her ankle a year or two back — caretully, ten- 
derly, feeling that, aitei all, blood was thicker than water. 

The dinner passed off pleasantly. The fresh damask, the polished- 
silver, the fruit and flowers under the soft light of shaded wax- 
candles, seemed excpiisite luxury to Geoffrey Ware, even after long 
years of Oriental arrangements. He liked to be waited upon once 
more by “ his kind,” as he called Europeans, who stepped bravely^ 
and did not creep and sidle swiftly and silently like the Indian serv- 
ants. The massive sideboard, set out with the family plate, was 
pleasant to his eyes. The soft evening light outside— the blinds 
w^ere up and the windows open— was calming to the mind. The 
scpiire’s hock was choice Lilian Drew, leaning back in her chair 
and fanning herself slowly, hei eyes fixed dreamily upon her emptj 
dessert -plate, looked as if she were thinking of heav^en. Bhe was 
merely, though, wondering whether she ought to postpone her visit 
to the Rectory on the morrow. 

‘‘ Certainly you ought, my love,” said her mother, as they settled 
themselves in the drawing room, Mrs. Drew at her tambour-frame,. 
Mrs. Ware at her knitting. ” We ought to show Geoffrey all re- 
spect while he is here. 1 am sure he is a kind, good man, thongli 
old for his years. He was a nice boy, ^ little wild — but all bc5’’S 
are.” Then she wondered what they could do to amuse him, and 
made suggestions by the dozen. 

But the colonel did not seem to miss the ladies. He stayed smok- 
ing* down-stairs with his uncle, talking of the estate and hearing the 
squire’s lengthy tales of all the small bickerings and law-suits with 
neighboring landowners, and disagreements with cantankerous or 
stubborn tenants, as if the subject were the chief interest of bis life. 

As a matter of fact, it was; for his monotonous life had been so 
uneventful. His father and mother were both dead, his two sisters 
were married and in India. He liked them very well, but had not 
taken sufficiently keen interest in their families to pleaser them; so, 
living hundreds of miles apart, and meeting perhaps once a year, or 
less often, they were gradually estranged. He had been in love- 
once; but the gill Avas engaged to be married to a brother-officer, so 
he sternly smothered a keen and troublesome passion, and looked 
coldly at the lady, who would glance at him wistfully with a'pecul- 
iar sympathy, wondering what could make Colonel W are dislike her 
so much. Had she known what, hours of disgust with life she cost 
the colonel, there might have been a very different future in store for 
many others. 

Colonel Ware loved bis profession. Outside it, he lived a dead 
level. His dreariness urged him to think of foregoing his rights, 
and he returned to England with his regiment, resolved to resign, 
what he could in favor of ” that poor injured wmman and her child.” 
What could he do at Heathside? he thought, until to-night, when, 


70 


A woman’s love-stoet. 


tas the squire talked, lie seemed to see so clearly how much there 
Teally was he could do to improve and regulate the estate. He had 
almost torgotten his resolution that all was really and morally Lilian 
Dtew’s, when a bell tinkled, and the squire exciaimed— 

“ VTliy, if it isn’t madam’s bell for her maid! Eleven o’clock! 
1 couldri’t ha’ believed it. it reminds me of* the old days when i sat 
and talked with your father. Poor lad — poor Davie! He always 
was up to the mark, ready for everything. It seems a shame tiie 
l^ofid should go and blackguards be left. 1 don'i mean you— that 
jascal, you know.” 

" Yes, yes,” said the colonel, changing the subject; he must say 
good night to the ladies. 

” To-morrow — or the first opportunity — 1 must come to an under- 
tstanding with Lilian,” he thought, as they went upstairs all together 
and interchanged good nights. 

But the next day and the day alter that came and went, and he 
had done nothing to break the ice. Why he did not know. It was 
chance, he thought, or perhaps a reluctance to break in upon this 
oasis in his desert of a life. He was charmed, fascinated by his 
surioundings. in the early morning he strolled in the garden with 
Mrs. Drew, and held hei garden-basket while she cut the dewy roses 
and fern fronds for the tables; and, while showing him by her ten- 
der caressing of the plants, by her knowledge of each one as it they 
w^ere semi-living friends, that a garden is another life to a garden- 
lover, she coaxed him to smoke over some rose-tree threatened with 
fly, or to help her to prune her favorites that were already shedding 
their leaves. , 

Then came breakfast wu’th the squire, who was in a singularly 
good temjier. 

“ 1 never saw* your father more pleased with any one,” Mrs. Ware 
confided to her daughter; ” 1 cannot quite understand it.” 

After breakfast the two went off round the farm, talking quite 
confidentially together. Then the colonel appeared punctually at 
luncheon, and, after the sun had begun to lessen its fierce scorch- 
ing, he and Mrs. Drew^ rode. In the evening the unused piano was 
open, and Lilian played w^hile the colonel leaned back in a chair and 
dreamed. Nearer fifty than forty, white-haired, comparatively old 
—and this was his first real taste of woman’s society! He could not 
bring himself to break the spell — to think of business, of lawyers 
and entail and charges upon the estate, and deeds and dry-as-dust 
worldly matters. While Lilian j^layed her simple airs — short move- 
ments ^of Mozart, choice bits of Handel, or the poetical dreams of 
Mendelssohn— Colonel Ware thought illogically of the future. If 
he took the estate, he would settle his own fortune on Lilian — the 
fortune partly inherited from his father, ” poor Davie,” partly saved 
and accumulated through his singularly frugal habits. Then he 
would insist upon her occupancy of the flail, while he would settle 
down in the bailiff’s house and would look after the estate — would 
be his own bailiff, in fact. It did not occur to the good colonel that 
he was somewhat anticipating mailers, and that the squire might 
even outlive him, and thereby let the property lapse to some distant 
icelative, who would take matU‘»' they were and be thankful — any 


A wo^iak’s love-story. 7t 

more than he diti not think it a strange ihing for Lilian to allude to 
her lather’s future death within ten minutes of his arrival. 

The days went by. Once or twice he began a hesitating allusion 
to his departure. The second time, the squire, who was lighting 
his pipe, turned suddenly upon him with a red face, and betweert 
his angry pufts said — 

“ No more o’ that, lad, or you and I’ll quarrel. What I Tired 
of us already?” 

Colonel Drew stammered. Of course his uncle must know how 
he liked the place— the place which was more like home than any 
other. After his poor father’s death, the home soon alter presided 
over by a step-father had imbittered his life; India he iiad never 
liked. He paused suddenly, fearing lest he should have offended 
his uncle; but the squire was smoking away contentedly, regarding 
his nephew with half-closed twinkling eyes. He was silent lor a 
moment, then he stopped, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and 
gave a curious chuckle. 

“Ah, 1 bet you’ll like the old place even better by and by!” he 
said, taking up his hat. . “ Now I’m going to ride round to the 
Rectory on business. You dance attendance on the women-lolk lor 
one morning; it won’t do yon harm, and it pleases them. Mind me„ 
Geoli— it you want peace in the house, you must be in the women’s 
good books, especially when there’s two ot ’em. Y'oucanget round 
one; but two— w'ell, a wu'se man don’t attempt ill” 

“ They will not like my staying on,” began the colonel uneasily. 

“ Not like it? Well, all 1 can say is you’ve put my nose out of 
joint; I’m nobody now. Good-by.” 

The squire w^as gone. He had stumped along the passage 
whisting— actually whistling — “ The Bold Dragoon!” 

Colonel Ware sat down, got up, then began to pace tie room. He 
was startled by his uncle’s w^ords, but still qrore by his manner. 

“ What did he mean?” he asked himself. “ Hemeant something.. 
He thinks something— he hinted something. What?” 

Such wild fancies buzzed about him that he felt that he would go 
to Mrs. Drew and settle the matter at onoe. He would rather go — • 
much rather go, he thought. There was a sore bitter feeling in his 
heart which should not be there, he knew; he did not want his aunt 
and cousin’s tolerance. • 

“lam ungrateful, ’ ’ he said to himself. Then he went to find Mrs. 
Drew. 

He was in the habit of going in and out everywhere, as if he ^vero 
the son ot the house. Madam Ware treated him almost as if ho 
were her son, and Lilian as if he were her brother. Although sho 
had not touched upon painful subjects connected wit& her life-history,^ 
Mrs. Drew had confided all her hopes and sentiments about her only 
child to her cousin, till he had grown almost to dislike Lilith. Ho 
had seen too much of lithe brown women with fierce black eyes 
a'nd tangled liair. Then he disliked women assuming in any way 
the roles of men. He had not been into the painting-room to see 
Lilith’s pictures on the walls. Lilith had been the on^ flaw in his 
contentment at Heathside Hall. Now -the content was over. 

“Mrs. Drew is in the parlor, sir.” aid Mary, meeting him with 


'^'3 A madman’s love-stokt. 

-a white apron full of lavender, she being on her way to the linen- 
presses, “ Oh, yes, pray go in, sir; there’s only cook there!” 

Lilian was giving out the stores, as was the old-fashioned custom 
maintained at Heathside Hall. The cook was piling them on a big 
tray. When Oolonel Ware entered, he heard the clank of the keys 
as Lilian shut the door ot the big cupboard. 

“ Oh, it is 5 ^ou!” she said, with slight surprise. Then, woman- 
like, seeing that he was annoyed, or the prey of some emotion, she 
at once assumed her armor of amiable commonplace, and asked if 
he remembered tlie room. “ Surely you used to creep about the 
cupboards when mother was meddling with the sweets? 1 did, and 
430 did Lilith after me.” 

” Yes,” answered the colonel absently, drawing a deep breath. 
He felt oppressed, weighed down. ” 1 shall never forget any day 
.spent here— any room in the house, any tree in the garden; but 1 
doubt that 1 shall see Heathside again. 1 have decided to go at 
once.” 

Mrs. Drew looked at him seriously. 

” Sit down there, cousin; I will talk to you in aminute,” she said, 
motioning him to the old sofa in the window. Then she carefully 
tidied the table, folding paper, rolling up stringy, placing books in 
-treat piles; after , which she went and sat down by the colonel. 

Why this sudden determination?” she said. ‘‘ Are you not rash? 
Tell me, what is it?” 

” 1 cannot understand your father — he is so peculiar.” 

“ Oh, is that all?” said Mrs. Drew. “ Poor dear, he really means 
4S0 rrell — only he cannot hold his tongue. He calls us women chat- 
terboxes ; but he is worse. I never think of noticing anything he 
■says.”- 

” As for that, he asked me to stay; but it was in such a strange 
way. He said—” 

“ Oh, don’t think of what he said!” said Mrs. Drew kindly. “ I 
•assure you both he and dear mother could not like you better if 
.were — their — own— son.” 

She said the last words slowly — her voice fell. It was one of 
those moments when Lilian Drew felt that she had been a disap- 
pointment. 

She was thinking of^the time before her birth, when preparations 
for an heir had been made— thinking of the blankness it must have 
been when her mother showed a little girl-child to the squire, instead 
ot the bold boy he had been prematurely boasting about. But the 
colonel heard the words in a different way. It was as if he had been 
blind, and suddenly saw wlfat the squire and perhaps others had 
^een before him. Both he and Lilian were free. They were cousins 
certainly; hut— 

He turned and looked firmly but passionately at his cousin. Her 
delicate profile was visible; Lilian was looking wistfully away into 
the park. He laid, his hand lightly on hers; she turned. What a 
sweet face it was! There w^ere lines drawn by mental pain; but 
there w^as such serenity — it was like gazing at an unstained lily. 

” 1 will do what you think best— go, or stay,” said Geoffrey Ware, 
in his ordinary vofee and assuming his ordinary manner — ‘‘ which- 
ever will be best for us all. ” 


7a 


A W9:MAK'S LOtE'STOEY. 

“ That is rather a serious view to take ot such a passing affair,*^ 
observed Lilian cheerfully. “ 1 should like, of fctll things, for us all 
to be real, true friends. Relatives are not always so. I wish you 
would go out and forget wliat my father said, Geoffrey,” she went 
on pleadingly. “ Go and ride. You would really be doing me a 
great service if you would go to Armchurch to order me some things 
1 want; then, after luncheon, we could walk over to the Rectory — 1 - 
am going to have tea there to-day The girls are charming ; 1 meant 
you to liaYC seen them before. We can talk over your going awajr 
during our walk.” 

” Do you wish me to do as you please?” asked Colonel Ware. 

” Reme'mber, to dictate is a responsibility.” 

” I will not dictate anything but what is right.” ' 

” ^Naturally,” said the colonel, rising. ” That was not the ques- r 
tion. Do you wish to dictate to me?” 

” 1 like to ask you what 1 think is for the best,” said Lilian. She 
was getting puzzled with these curious observations. 

” You do— actually and really?” The colonel was terribly seri- 
ous. • 

” Of course,” said Lilian, feeling uneasy. ” 1 love to see people 
happy, or at least dping well by themselves and by others.” - 

‘‘ 1 will obey you, cousin, in all but one point-^let that be under- 
stood: but that 1 reserve.” 

Something about the estates?” 

. “Yes.” ' p 

Lilian frowned, and considered for a moment. She thought her ^ 
cousin odd, quixotic* hasty, and often incomprehensible; she would - :| 
temporize for to-day, at least. This afternoon she would consult iho’ 
Rector, it she could get him alone; she believed that she was em- ' ' 
powered to refuse any tiansler of property to herself. In any case, ; 
there would be some vray out of such a transaction. 

‘ ‘ Do you accept my proposal— for me to play number two in: 
affairs to be decided— excepting in one particular?” said the colonel 
emphatically. 

Again Lilian hesitated Then she said slowly — 

“Yes.” ; 

The colonel said no more, but abruptly left her. . i; 

“What is the matter with him?” said Lilian Drew to herself 
“Oh, men, men, they are difficult! It is bad enough with papa> 
who speaks out; but it is worse wdth those who won’t. What arO: 
their secrets, after all, when you do find them out? Either nothing - 
worth knowing, or nothing that you want to know. How fortunate 
Lilith is to have that dear boy Willie at her elbow!” 

Then Mrs. Drew’s thoughts fled to London, and her hand in- 
stinctively sought her pocket, where Lilith’s letters were— Lilith's 
letters with Willie Macdonald’s postscripts. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Mrs. Drew came to luncheon, determined to be gay. The colonel 
had returned from his ride. He wslq standing looking moodily out 
at the garden, wondering why the neat beds of blossom he had liked 


74 A woman’s love-stoey. ^ 

so much looked garish— ugly almost— to-day. He had felt the san, 
cantering along the roads. The heat and the dust annoyed hi. 
He thought the scenery monotonous. 

‘‘ The soul of punctuality as usual/’ said Mrs. Drew, as she ca?) 
in. 

The colonel, turning round quickly, saw that she was dressed i 
black. The dress was light and gauzy. But black he had alwa. 
disliked, and now he felt as if Lilian were flaunting her moiirnii^ 
in his face. He took his seat by his aunt, less amiably disposed tbar 
usual. However, Mrs. Drew was too subtle tor him. Without 
his knowing it, she coaxed him into a good temper. Then, after 
luncheon, as they walked, first through the park, then through a half- 
cut harvest-field" and a green copse, he felt his better humor return- 
ing. Already this cousin of his had a greater influence over hin 
than any woman had had, excei^t— except— 

“ Do you know that you remind me very much of a lady I once 
knew in India?” he said, abruptly, as they emerged from the shady 
wood into the Rector's fields. ” It is not-your face,” he said, glanc- 
ing down. “No; your faces are nut in the least alike, except that 
you are both fair. It is something in the manner, in the voice.” 

Lilian merely said “ Oh!” But before they reached the Rectory 
she had learned the tacts of Colonel Ware’s love story, and he hatdly 
knew that he had, contrary to his reticent habit, told Mrs. Drew 
what he had never before told to a fellow-creature; he only knew 
-that he felt softened, content — especially when, • after listening in 
sympathetic silence, Lilian looked up and said-^ 

“ Perhaps it was as well. Marriage — well, the word means such 
fearful chances, such lotteries of mischievous torments — at least to 
me! Think you are well off, Geoffrey! At least, you are not afraid 
to remember!” 

As she said the last words, almost in a whisper, she opened the 
■Rector}^ garden gate. 

Colonel Ware glanced approvingly at the low thatched house. 
Though it lay in tlie sunlight, it looked cool with its green Venetians 
and the rustic porch, beyond which lie could see through the narrow 
passage into the shady orchard. Tlie Rector enjoyed the fresh sum- 
.mer air, and persisted in living with doors and windows open, in 
spite of his wife’s declarations that in summer the house was no bet- 
ter than a trap for flies, gnats, wasps, and bees. 

As their footsteps clattered on the red tiles wdien they w^alked be- 
tween the spiky lavender-bushes and hollyhocks, the fuchsias and 
the tall dahlias with their shell-flower blooms, out came the Rector. 

“ Welcome, welcome, if you have tarried, Lilian!” he said; then 
lie shook hands with the golonel, and led them through the corridor 
into Mrs. Rawson’s little drawing-room. 

“ I will call the girls and my wife,” he said; “ they are busy with 
a sillabub.” 

Mrs. Drew sat down. The colonel gravely inspected the sitting- 
room. The low ceiling wu*th its heavy beam, the bay-wundow hung 
about wulh ivy, the stained floor with the holland-covered furniture, 
the old spinnet, the mirror surmounted' by a gilt eagle, reflecting the 
room in delicate miniature, pleased him" Then there was a mill- 


A WOMAN'S LOYE-STOKY. 75 

tary, malhematical neatness delightful to a soldier who had a dash 
of the martinet in his composition. 

“This does not look like unhappy marriage, at all events,’^ he 
said, in a low voice to Lilian. 

In this co'tage with the open doors it came naturally to visitors to 
speak low, tor they could hear the little chattering noises and voices 
from the kitchen, the creak of footsteps above, all the sounds that 
aie lost in a vast house with thick walls. 

“ No/’ said Lilian doubtfully. 

She knew that the Rector, with his open hearted charitableness, amt 
his wife, 8 somewhat hard disciplinarian, were scarcely an uhai 
couple. But the colonel thought her opinions naturally w^arped by 
her wretched experiences. 

“ I wonder,” he w^as beginning to think vaguely, when in came 
a plump woman— Mrs. Rawson. 

“ My dearest Lilian!” she said, embracing her. “ And of course, 
this is the Colonel. 1 remember you so high,” she was saying te 
her future landlord, when two bright girls in neat muslin dresses 
ran in. 

Kate and Mary were pink-cheeked fair damsels, with pretty fair 
hair — Marv tall and biown-eyed, Kate shorter, paler, and thinner 
than tier sister, as became an authoress who had many hours of 
anxiety in the manufacture of children’s stories. They blushed^ 
but w^ere so cordial, though so unaffectedly shy of the colonel, that 
he liked them at once, hating as he did their’ opposite— the self- 
possessed assertive girl who seemed to him to have spontaneously 
generated with steam, gas, and electricit}^ 

The Rector and a rustic handmaiden bearing a tray of glasses came 
4n together. Then Mrs. Rawson went out and returned with a great 
china bowl of sillabub. 

“ Y’ou must excuse want of ceremony,” she said, as she care- 
fully placed tlie bowl upon the table; “ but country wrenches must 
not be ii listed with old heirlooms. Colonel Ware. Their very nerv- 
ousness would make the things slip through their fingers.” 

The colonel grQ,yely accepted and drank a glass of sillabub, stand- 
ing silently with his back to the window, while Mrs. Rawson and, 
her daugliters fluttered about Mrs. Drew; they all seemed to lan.gli 
and talk at once. Then a fluff}^ spaniel rushed into the room and 
careered round the center table, making the glasses clatter, anij 
Marj^ on her hands and knees to capture him, gave a little shriek 
which was echoed by a gray parrot hanging in a big cage among 
the roses outside the window. The Rector was talking to his guest, 
about local juatters, the estate, the squire, the church; and Colonel 
Ware said “ Yes ” or “ No ” here and there, without grasping the 
sense of Mr. Rawson’s words. This was to him like a perfectly- 
colored picture suddenly come to life; it fascinated him. Lilian had 
taken oft her hat, and, with her upraised gleaming eyes and her 
hands clasped upon her knee, white against her black dress, looked 
what she was, as it* naught rough, or rude, or coarse could (ouch, 
or influence, or harm her. 

He awakened suddenly when Mr. Rawson asked him, in a raised 
voice, w hivfli would he see first, the d vn-v aud the, farm-yard, or the. 


76 - , A woman’s love-stony. 

church— -the Keetor had asked this question twice, and set the f uture 
squire down as being slightly hard of hearing. 

“ You were here as a boy,” continued Mr. Rawson; ” but 1 do 
not suppose your tastes led you to inspect the brasses or to decipher 
the epitaphs on the old tombs of the De la Warres, as they were 
then named. We have some ancient records of your family, 
colonel, locked away in the sate in the vestry.” Then he gave an 
account of the finding of these parchments in a worm-eaten chest 
with rusty iron clamps, and how the squire would have nothing to 
do with them. 

“It is scarcely in my father’s style,” said Mrs. Drew, smiling. 
“ Indeed he has a sort of horror of old books. Are you interested 
in black-letter recoixis of the Knights de la Warre, Geofirey? One 
was a Crusader. ” 

Colonel Ware felt just then that he would be interested in anything 
if Lilian’s eyes would alwaj^s look as bright as they did now. A new 
longing to give this wronged woman pleasure, to bring the color 
permanently to her cheek and lips — that crimson which is almost 
the hall-mark of the gay and untroubled— seemed to spring up with- 
in him. She had grown more lo him now that she knew the one 
love-episode of his life; it was a tie between them. So he agreed to 
visit all that w^as to be seen, in the order the ladies might propose. 

“ Then, my dear,” said Mr. Eawson, “ perhaps you wnll take the 
colonel to the dairies, and we will walk up to the church after tea.” 

W^hile the girls and their mother got their garden hats — Mrs. Kaw- 
mn talking briskly to Colonel Ware, as her husband by a peculiar 
glance had intimated to her to do — the Rector bent over Lilian. 

“ While they are gone there is something 1 wish to speak to you 
about. Oh, not Lilith!”— for Mrs. Drew looked anxious. “1 go 
to you for news of her; she neglects her poor old godfather dread- 
tully. Ko; it is about one of "your many pensioners. Suppose we 
take a stroll in the orchard?” 

Mrs. Drew took his arm and went out with him. The colonel 
looked annoyed, but endeavored to please his new acquaintances by 
being interested in the long low white dairy, where the big round 
pans of cream stood on the spotless shelves, where Uie monthly roses 
came peeping through the wdred windows, and wdiere all was so 
cool, fresh, and sweet, from the bunches of herbs hanging from the 
ceiling to the. yellow pats of butter under their muslin veils. He 
could see the Rector and Lilian as they walked slowiyacross the long 
grass under the apple-trees, and wondered w^hat serious matter they 
could be discussing so earnestly. The Rector’s hands were clasped 
behind him; he walked slowly. Lilian stopped short now and then, 
^nfi seemed to appeal to aim. 

Some day perhaps he vrould know, he was just thinking, with far 
graver truth than he imagined, when his cheerful little hostess told 
him he must now inspecf her fowls; she would like his opinion of 
lier new Cochin-Chinas. 

Meanwhile the Rector was unwillingly telling Mrs. Drew news that 
was scarcely pleasant lo her to hear. The actress-mother of Ihe 
children — Captain Drew’s orphans — had had a relapse. Her former 
nervous disease had returned, and her Voice was utterly gone. 

“ My own belief is that she is dying,” said the Rector. “ 1 can- 


A -WOMAK'S L0YE'STOIIY. 77 

not, of course, sympathize with her as 1 can with the— the children. 
But the one 1 think of most in the affair is yourself. ’’ Then he told 
Lilian ihe actual situation. Some relatives— possibly the parents of 
the unfortunate woman— had appeared after she had resumed the 
stage and had made a success. Then all had seemed to go smoothly 
—the children were well cared for ; but now it was the reverse. “ Of 
course, the world would Say, Let them alone; let their natural 
guardians do their worst/’ he continued. “ But you and 1 cannot 
-think that.” 

” How did you know it?” aslred Lilian. It seemed but the other 
day that she skw the woman for whom she- had been forsaken, and 
her husband’s children, almost in the sunshine of life, well dressed, 
admired. “ Did you go— did, you see her wiieh you took her the 
money?” 

‘‘ Ko,” said the Rector. Then he broke to' Lilian how he had 
found a travel-stained, forsaken, dirty little lad, lying half taint, 
half asleep, under a hedge; the child had sprained his aulde, blis- 
tered his feet; his cap had been stolen by tramps. ‘‘ In fact, he was 
sucii a miserable object that, until the bailiffs wife had washed the 
*dirt from his curls and we had dressed his scratched face, I had no 
idea who it was.” 

” Gerald!” said Mrs. Drew, turning pale. This second family 
•seemed to haunt her very life. 

The Rector bowed his head. 

” Of course they do not know here,” he said. ” He is being 
nursed at the bailiff’s. But the question now arises— what to do 
with him?” 

” Let me go to him — at once!” exclaimed Mrs. Drew. 

“ Stay, stay!” said the Rector. For what good? It was wrong 
of the boy to run awayj he knew my, address, but he knows neither 
your name nor who you are. Why should he ever learn? Far best 
to let me arrange matters as I have hitherto done. W e can talk over 
how and when, when the lad is well. But 1 thought you ought to 
know.” 

Lilian thought for a moment. 

”1 must see him,” she said resolutely, turning to leave the 
orchard. 

The house of the Rectory farm -bail iff was a stone's -throw from the 
Rectory itself. Leaving the orchard by a ^door in the wall, they 
crossed a narrow lane and went along a field -path which led to the 
low thatched cottage with its shady garden. The harvest-apples were 
red among the leaves. There was a scent of warm fruit, of the roses, 
the bailiff’s wife prided herself upon— those grafted by the Rector 
himself, who was always ready to encourage love of flowers among 
his flock. 

The bailiff’s wife was drawing water from a well in a shady 
corner. She came forward, wondering /o see Mrs. Drew, with the 
Rector, there. 

” How is the lad, Mrs. Pavitt?’ ’ asked the Rector kindly. Then he 
dropped his voice and told Mrs. Pavitt that Mfs. Drew had come to 
visit their foundling, but he had better see him first. ” Is he better 
to-day?” he added. . ^ ’ 

” ^Se\], sir,” said the woman doubtfully, ” it’s hard to say. He 


78 


A woman’s love-stoby. 

eats next to nothing, and seems fretful like. 1 stopped up with him laslr 
night, but he kept starling in his sleep and calling, ‘ Mother, I’m com- 
ing!’ He tells me his mother is ill. So 1 said, Why run away from 
her then?’ At which he said it was to get help. 1 told him it waa 
an odd way to get help, to walk out days and days all the way from 
London here. But he only stares with his big eyes, and picks at the 
blanket.” 

” You wait here for a minute,” said Mr. Rawson to Mrs. Drew. 

He went along the narrow passage to the room where the sick boy 
lay, and Mrs. Drew stayed in Mrs. Pavitt’s sitting-room, sitting by 
the window and watching her little children at play in the garden. 

Mrs. Drew had a natural love for little ones, with their funny 
babbling talk, their pink wondering faces, thtir chubby limbs, and 
all those odd little Waj^s which reminded her of the silly white 
lambs in early spring, or the stupid inquisitive pups' which she 
visited in the stable-yard, or the fluffy round yellow balls, theinfann 
chickens. So she listened patiently to Mrs. Pavitt’s account of how 
Tommy’s throat had been bad ever since the scaiiet-fe^er, and Jenny 
there, she was a lazy little lass, but play did her good. The Rector 
grumbled because she did not attend school as he thought she ought 
to. But there — what would Tommy do without Jenny to look, 
after him? She was busy with the master’s dinner of a morning, 
and cleaning up, and doing a bit in the garden betimes. 

Here she stopped short, for the Rector’s footstep was audible in 
the passage. Mrs. Drew stood up, her heart beating as it always 
would beat when her lifCrStory was brought back to her. 

” 1 have told him you are here, and to a certain extent who you 
are,” said Mr. Rawson to Mrs. Drew in an undertone. “ It has 
excited him very much. Of course he Knows nothing about the— 
the curious relationship, or rather circumstances,” he added hastily,. 
“ Heknows'you only as a merciful benefactress; indeed 1 believe your 
help has warded off a terrible state of things,” he went on sadly, 
“ It seems to me the old story of the sins of the parents visited upon, 
the children. Shall 1 go in with you?” 

Mrs. Drew shook her head and waved her old friend and counselor 
away as she unlatched the door and found herself in the best bed- 
room of the bailiff’s cottage. 

It was a neat little room, the floor as white as a well-scrubbed 
oaken floor could be. There was an old carved oak linen-press, (m 
which stood two heavy brass candlesticks; there were a couple of 
chairs, and a chest of drawers, covered with a clean napkin, oa 
which lay a huge Bible; over the mantel-piece were colored prints. 
The lattice window was open, and a gay jug with a bunch of flow- 
ers stood on the window-seat. 

Close by was the bed; on it lay the boy .with the fair face and the- 
long golden curls, who, despite his fairness, had the expression of 
that handsome dark Captain Drew — the man who had once done 
his best to break the heart of this gentle lady. 

” You?” said the boy, in a strange voice — he had risen in bed, 
and his large eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Drew with wild intensity—* 
“ you?” Then he sunk back upon his pillow. 

“ Yes, it is 1,” said Mrs. Drew gently. She sat down on a chair 
by the bed and placed her hand, chilled with emotion, on his fevered 


79 


A WO]tfAK’S LOYE-STOKY. 

■'io^ehe^d. 1 will not scold 3 ^ou for running here, Gerald, for you 
<are ill,” she went on, with gentle motiierliness. “ But why did you 
-come? Did you come to me, or to— to Mr. Raw^son, the clergy- 
man?” 

The boy smiled slightly, and alanced at her with a meaning look. 

I knew he came from you,” he wliispered; ” w’ho else has ever 
troubled about us? Grandmother and grandlathei ? They took all 
-poor mother’s money when she was acting — yes, and sold berthings 
besides; then, when she got so ill, there was no money at all, so 
^everything she had w^ent. Mother tried to keep some back, but 
they were like foxes after chickens — you couldn’t hide a thing from 
them. They haven’t got her a proper doctor. Then (hey beat us 
•aha locked iis up; I fought my waj^ out — look here!” — he showed 
long jagged wounds on his hands and arms. “ That kind parson 
gentleman who found me in the field thought I had been fighting 
somewhere; 1 got these when 1 battered in the door-panels and got 
out. It went against me to leave the sisters'; but, as those tvvo old 
ones were pretty well stupid drunk, they wouldn’t hurt them then, 
and there was little harm leaving them tor a while. But 1 didn’t know 
It was so far. I wuilked and 1 w'alked, and sonietimes got a lift in 
■a cart and a sleep in a barn, but the tramps and the gypsies didn’t 
like the looks of me, I think. The tramps stole my cap and my coat, 
and the 2 :)psies set their boys hooting and their dogs barkinfi: at me, 
and called out, ‘ Ah, that’s what fine gentlemen come to when they 
lun away from school!’ Then 1 got dizzy, the road began to heave 
as 1 walked, and once or twice 1 tumbled over upon the grass* by 
the ditches and seemed to go into a sort of sleep and wake up sick 
and cold, and wondering wdio 1 was and what I was about. Then 
my feet bleu and got sore, and i crept into hiding when 1 saw any 
one coming. When 1 got to Ileathside, and knew 1 was near the 
clergyman wdio had been so kind, it seemed to overcome me. How 
1 got under that hedge I don’t know^ — ” 

“Stop!” said Mrs. Drew, feeling sick at heart. “ Don’t think 
•of It any more, Gerald, my boj^ I'ou are with friends now.” 

” But wdiat about mother? Oh, you will send some one to my 
mother?” 

” At once, dear boy,” Mrs. Drew began, but Gerald stopped her. 

You won’t be angry it 1 ask you something?” he said. ‘‘You 
must be some one very near to us to take such trouble. Are you 
my poor father’s sister?” 

The blood rushed to Mrs. Drew’s face. It was an awful moment. 

” Don’t think badly of him if j^ou are,” he said, the excitement 
of passionate feeling stimulating him, weak though he actually was. 
“ Oh, don’t! 1 knew papa had quarreled with his family when he 
married mamma, and no one ever wrote or took any notice of him. 
But, if you only knew, all of you, how good, how clever he was, 
and how he sufi;er(’d, could not remember him unkindly now 
that he is dead. Tlien he loved mamma so — ” , 

” Stop, Gerald!” cried Mrs. Drew, as this poisoned arrow of 
speecii seemed to pierce her to the very quick. ” I am not j^our 
dead father’s sister— only a friend.” 

‘‘A. friend!” said the boy. ‘‘Oh, I am glad, because a friend 
like you,” he said— looking wistfully at the woman who, child as 


80 


A WOMAN'S LOYE-STOKY. 


lie was, be saw was beautiful — “ is like a guardian-angel! 1 dreamed 
you were since 1 was here,” he continued; “ you were all shining^ 
and bigger, with great wings. 1 felt hot, and my body ached, and 
my head ached, till it seemed as if ikwas being beaten by hammers. 
But the angel that was like you came and lifted me out of bed and 
carried me into the cool and hushed me, and I felt happy. Then I 
woke up here, and Mrs. Pavitt said 1 had had m}’' first good sleep.’*' 

“ Gerald,” said Mrs. Drew earnestly, “ think that always; 1 will: 
try m}^ best that it shall be true.” 

Then she embraced him, kissed his brow, laid him gently back on 
his pillow, and went out, influenced by some new ardor w^hich was 
like the passion of the soul which seizes upon those that do great 
deeds, heroic actions — those who are, as it might be, beings beyond 
and above men, and who seem to hold the world up upon their pa- 
tient shoulders— up nearer to Heaven. 


CHAPTER Xlll. 

Mil, Rawson, watching the doorway somewhat anxiously as he 
talked to the good dame about her garden and played with the chil- 
dren, saw Lilian come down the little passage with a godlike mercy 
on her gentle face, and dreaded, for he thought to himself — 

“ She is going to do all or nothing. She will not leave matters 
alone; so it will be all. And the squire and the colonel — what will 
they say? And what will Felicia— my wife — say?” The latter 
thought brought out a mental ejaculation — “Oh, Heaven! But I 
must see her through, I must see her through!” 

Mrs. Drew, with the sweet absent manner of one who descends to 
earthly trifles after the intoxication of a heavenly vision, spoke ta 
the bailifl’s wife and caressed the children, then went slowiy across- 
the field with the Rector. 

Too slowly by far for him indeed! For she was insisting upon 
his help in a matter he did not feel inclined to meddle wdth. Mrs. 
Drew first begged him, entreated him, and, when he met the gaze 
of the pure pathetic eyes, it was hard to resist. Then she said, stop- 
ping short — ! 

“ If — If” — drawing a deep breath — “.you do not go, Mr. Rawson, 
my duty lies plainly before me. This woman must be protected. 
If you do not go, 1 must.” 

This was a convincing blow; Mr. Rawson acquiesced. Hewmuld 
go, of course, he said. How indeed, he thought, could he subject 
S(rs. Drew to such degradation? 

“ Then there is another point on which 1 must beg your help,” 
went on Mrs. Drew. “ The dear boy— he must not, he cannot stay 
there; he must come to the Hall.” 

“ What?” said the Rector, slopping short. He had expected 
much, but scarcely such a proposition as this. “ Are you mad, 
Lilian? But it is impossible, utterly impossible.” 

“ Why?” asked Mrs. Drew, speaking as firmly as. Mr. Raw^son 
himself. “ Pray is not the Hall my home?” 

“Scarcely yet! Would you — 1 was going to say — desecrate the 
house where your father and mother have lived^ in simple purity all. 


A wo:mak’s loye-story. 81 

tli^se long years by bringing the child of a man like Captain Drew 
and of that actress into it?-’ 

“ Y'ou are unjust, Mr. Rawson.” 

“ I did not mean anything against actresses in particular. Ai^ 
actress can be good — ay, even better than her fellow- women who 
have not her temptations. 1 meant this— before that boy crosses the 
squire's threshold the squire must be told who he is.” 

“ Have 1 not the right to invite my owa, guests? Do you deny" 
me the right?” asked Lilian sternly. 

“Not in reason! But this — this hateful case is an exceptional 
one, Lilian! Be sensible, be reasonable. Y’our first duty is not 
with these people; it is with your father, your mother, and Lilith. 
Then your cousin — the people round about! Has there not been 
scandal enough?” 

They were nearing the Rectory gate. The colonel and the rosy-^ 
cheeked Mary were standing in the doorway looking out for them. 

“ 1 shall ask my Cousin Geoftrey’s advice,” said Mrs. Drew slowljr 
and quietly. 

“ Pray, pray consider what you are about,” entreated the Rector,, 
in a low, earnest voice. “ He is your cousin and your father’s heii,. 

1 know; but until the other day he was comparatively a stranger to- 
you. It you do ask his advice, will you abide by it?” 

“ Will you go to town to-night?” asked Lilian, stopping shoit 
and looking at her watch. “ There are two more trains— ” 

“ 1 will do all you require on this point if y6u will promise me to • 
follow Colonel Ware’s advice about bringing that boy to the Hall,” < 
said the Rector. Little fear, he thought, as he looked toward the 
- soldierly form with the empty sleeve leaning against the ’ doorpost;^' ■■ 
what that advice would be! 

Lilian, who w^as standing gazing back at the bailiff’s cottage,, 
turned suddenl}^ and saw Colonel Ware looking earnestly at Her It 
was a gaze in which there were mingled interest, sadness, longing. 
His expression changed as their eyes met; but in her overwrought,, 
nervous mood Mrs. Drew seemed at that moment tdbe pre-warned 
that her cousin would come to feel more strongly for her than she: 
had dreamed of or wished. 

' Astonished, confused, her sensation at the unexpected revelatioa 
was one of shrinking, almost of dislike. She did not, as some 
vainer women might have done, jump to the conclusion that Colonel ' 
Ware had fallen head over ears in love with her at first sigbt. But 
she told herself that this look of his, as w^ell as his somewhat puz^ 
zling manner that day, meant that, without her intending or wish- 
ing such a thing, she already had considerable influence over him. 

“ I can— 1 am sure I can talk him over,” she thought. There 
would be the walk home; it would be less painful to tell the story 
of her ' desertion in the darkness. Her blushes of wounded pride 
would be hidden. “ 1 promise, ” she said to the Rector. 

“ That’s a good girl!” he said, with a sigh of relief. 

He felt his responsibility somewhat shifted. Indeed, of late, while 
he had sent large sums from Mrs. Drew for the use of those chil- 
dren, he had felt as ii he were scarcely doing right. Now some one 
else— and that some one else a military man, whose very word ancs 


82 


A woman’s love-stoky. 

gesture showed the strict disciplinarian — would know, judge, and — 
please Heaven! — would direct, or rattier check Mrs. Drew. 

With a smile to Geofirey— the smile a woman gives to a man who 
knows all her circumstances, and in whom she has pertect confi- 
dence — Mrs. Drew went back into the little parlor. Mrs. Eawson, 
highly gratified by the colonel’s chivalrous attention to her as his 
hostess during their visits to the various interesting objects in the 
Heciory farm, was pouring out tea, assisted by her daughter Kate. 
As Lilian came in, she said — 

“ Web, m.y dear, your little mystery with the Rector has not kept 
you very long, lam sure 1 quite hurried the good colonel; and, 
after all, he did not see those two beautiful heifers in one of the 
houses. Why, you have scarcely been gone an hour 1” 

An hour! It seemed a da 3 ^~-days — to Mrs. Drew since siie had 
walked through the copse and down the green slope with the. colonel 
listening to his love-story of long ago. She was wondering, think- 
ing, dreaming, during the cheerful tea; she smiled as the}^ all talked 
and laughed, without knowing what the conversation was. 

Presently the Rector went out; and, after tea was taken away, his 
wife followed him. Then he came back, apologized for leaving, 
them, and announced his journey to town. His wife had been 
slightly annoyed when she heard of this sudden call. But part of 
her duty was to be agreeable to the squire and his family, so she did 
not show how surprised she was —put out, her daughters would 
have called it — in the presence of her guests. 

The. Rector gone, they strolled in the garden, watching the sun go 
down; and, when sunset came — one of those gorgeous sunsets which 
alw’^ays made Mrs. Drew yearn for Lilith — they sat under the porch, 
and Mary sung little Scotch songs and ballads to them. Mary had 
a sweet plaintive voice. Her last song was “ Willie, we have missed 
you.'’ After this, Mrs. Drew rose and said good-by. She fell the 
sudden reaction after excitement; or was it that name — Willie— that 
made her think of the faded roses locked away in her drawee:, of 
that night at the theater, when 'Willie Macdonald’s honest, gentle 
gallanti'}^ during a trying scene bad so impressed itself upon her 
mind that she could not think of Lilith, or of those children, or even 
of London itself, without dwelling upon his kindnesses, Jiis genial 
presence, his boyish fervor? 

Lilith! She longed for her next letter, due during the next day 
or two. 

It was a soft sweet evening, the sky a pale greenish blue; the air 
was cool; there was a tnmsparency' that made far-off objects seem 
nearer. Tlie church which they were to have explored looked dark 
gra)^ from among its belt of yew-1 rees. The corn fields with the 
standing shocks of wheat were a luminous yeJlow\ It was one of 
those nights when Lilith would have reveled in the new i^hases of 
color produced by a happy moment of Kature. 

As Mr. Drew and her cousin the colonel — after bidding the Rector’s 
lamily good night— w^alked up the slope homew^ard, Mrs. Drew 
paused and looked back. 

“ If only Lilith could see that!” slie exclaimed. Then she spoke 
of her child. ” Weai'e so entirely different,” she said; “yet w^e 
aee things alike, admire alike, and our ideas of what is right and 


A TVOMA^s’S LOYE-STORY. 8S 

good are the same— as far as the ideas of a middle-aged woman and 
a mere girl can be. ” 

“ You speak ot being middle-aged/’ said the colonel; “ yet, when 
3 came- upon you in that break in the wood, you looked a young git 1 
in your white dress. Lilian,” he went on, almost awkwardly, tor 
he was unaccustomed to purely personal talk, ” you seem years and 
years younger than 1 am.” 

” Because you have seen so much, traveled so far, and 1” — sho 
stopped a moment to gather courage to embark upon the subject she 
intended to speaK to him about — ” well, my life has been like one 
long: calm day which is now sinking into evening — a calm day broken 
upon by a short terrible storm. 1 mean my marriage, Geoffrey. It 
— well — 1 — oh, to-night 1 must speak to you on the subject, please! 
I promised the Rector to do so, or nothing would induce me.” 

The colonel’s dark face flushed, and, old as he was, his pulses- 
beat faster. What did this mean? 

” I have given you confidences 1 never aave to living soul before, 
Lilian,” he said warmly, as he held open the gate of the copse for 
Mrs. Drew to pass in. ” It is but a fair return, Surely you must 
know I will do my duty by you— stand by you till death if jieeda 
be? You are my kinswoman as well as”— he stopped — what was 
he going to say?—” as well as a claimant to the estate,” he stam- 
mered. That was certainly not what he had had on the tip of his 
tongue, he confusedly felt. 

” Oil, that inheritance! Pray let us leave that question alone, 
said Lilian wearily. “It has nothing to do with this. I toll you 
my married life w'as a short storm; did 1 not? Well, it was one of 
those biiet wild storms such as you must often have seen in hotter 
lands than this; it not only ruined my life, but wrecked the lives of 
others.” 

“Yes,” said her cousin kindly, and in the tone which meant 
” coniinue. ” 

” I suppose you can imagine what I mean?” said Mrs. Diew, her 
cheeks burning. ‘‘There were three children, and their mother 
was ill— disabled; they were penniless — ” 

‘ Well?” asked the colonel, astonished. ” Oh, 1 see! These — 
these people have dared to blackmail you! My dear child, that 
question is easily settled; but it shall have nothing to do with j^ou. 
We won t trouble my uncle of course; but JVIr. Rawson and I will 
talk the matter over, and arrange so that there shall be no further 
annoyance.” 

He spoke with his determined military manner, which was new 
to IVlrs. Drew. Just a tinge ot— was it fear, embarrassment, or what 
checked her somewhat? 

“You quite mistake me,” she said gently; (hen she told her story, 
and the colonel, impatiently swinging his stick, listened. 

He had heard of women shutting themselves into convents, of 
women sacrificing their lives tor those they loved, and he had seerk 
women cheerfully ascend the funeral pile of their dead husbands to 
be burnt alive with the corpse; but he had never expected to meet a 
woman who would plead the cause of her dead husband’s mistress 
and children as if it were her own. 

The trouble— the stoimr, as she ceded it — must have affected her 


84 A 'VTOMAn’S LOVB-STOET. - 

■brain, he thought; and, when she had come to an end with the re- 
quest that the colonel would aid and a'bet in the lad Gerald’s intro- 
duction into Heathside Hall, at all events tor the present, he con- 
;gratulated himself that he was there, that he had come at the right 
moment. As a commander of men, he was not in the habit of con- 
sulting those under his command as to what his commands should - 
be; and now, although he was rapidly making up his mind as to his 
future line ot conduct, he certainly had no intention of letting his 
haie-brained cousin into his secrets. 

“ You are an angel, Lilian, he said, as they emerged into the 
park. “ No, it is not a compliment; 1 never heard of a woman with 
such generous intentions. 

He said hut little more; he was on guard. By the time they 
reached home he had pledged himself to help Lilian as far as his 
honor would permit. She had tried to excite his enthusiasm with- 
out avail; he had, without seeming to do so, thrown cold water on 
her romantic suggestions. 

“ Everything that can be done in reason shall be done,’" he as- 
sured Mrs. Drew, as he bade her good night; and with that she had 
to be sal isfied. 

She had expected an easy victory ; but the Colonel had frozen or 
hardened treslily at each assault. 

“ That is a man who would never forgive, ’' she told herself, with 
a new awe of him. Yet this morning he was so difterent; I might 
have turned him round my little finger. How changeable men are!” 
she sighed, forgetting that a soldier on furlough is scarcely the same 
as a soldier on duty. 

Colonel Yv^'are stayed some days; but he remained the Colonel 
'Ware she had consulted that night, scarcely the Cousin Geofirey of 
the first part of his stay at Heathside. He visited the sick child 
with Mrs. Drew, and was kindly, if a trifle austere, in his manner 
to him. Then he called upon the Rector one morning, when his 
■cousin thought he was about the place somewhere with her father. 
He briefly stated the cause of his visit to the Rector. 

“1 consider myself to a certain extent my Cousin Lilian’s guard- 
ian,” he said; “and, although 1 wish her to be and to do what her 
good heart prompts her to be and to do; 1 have not the slightest in- 
tention to allow her to be imposed upon or to make a fool of her- 
self.” 

“ 1 am extremely pleased to hear it. Colonel Ware,” said the Rec- 
tor energeticall}^; then they discussed Lilian’s position. 

“ It is only a temporary truce,” remarked Colonel Ware, as they 
parted at the garden gate. “Lilian will see matters in a different 
light some of these days. ” 

“ Oh,” said the Rector to himself, as he went indoors, “ 1 think 
1 fancy 1 can see which way the wind blows!” 

“ Whatever are you muttering to yourself, my dear?” asked his 
wife, coming suddenly upon him in her brisk busy way. “The 
wind? What floes it matter? It seems to me due south.” 

“ 1 thought so,” said the Rector; then he went into his little study, 
and, as he refilled his ink-bottle, wondered what would come of it 
-all. 


85 


A WOMAir’s LOVE STOKY. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Lilian Drew little dreamed that a crisis in her lite was fast 
approaching to which the brief storm of short married life Would be 
as nothinof. 

But the crisis really began on that day when the Rector found, in 
the ragged little boy lying under the hedge, the wicked Captain 
Drew’s unfortunate son Gerald — Lilith’s half-brother. 

Mrs. Drew’s curious ideas, which set the colonel thinking more 
seriously and deeply than he had thought for years, were bringing 
-about her fate. Colonel Geoffrey Ware was in love with her. It 
took him some days to assure himself of the fact; but, once certain 
of his own feelings, he faced the future as he had faced the enemy’s 
-guns, boldly and unflinchingly. 

Lilian must marry him. She required a guide, an adviser, as well 
as a protector for her daughter Lilith. Besides, their marriage would 
ond all difficulty about the inheritance. The Hall would be Lilian’s, 
as his wife; her income his, as her husband; and, when he settled 
his private property upon her, as he had alread}^ thought of doing, 
he would be settling money not only upon his cousin, but his wife. 

On the evening before he left he asked Mrs. Drew to walk in the 
garden with him. He had been so practical, matter-of-fact— such a 
different Geoffrey, in fact — during these last days that Mrs. Drew 
acquiesced unsuspiciously, and fell into the trap without warning or 
preparation. 

It was a warm moonlit night. Colonel Ware and Lilian paced the 
gravel walks, she talking nothings, he silent — so silent that at last 
she asked him laimhingly if he had lost his tongue. 

“ 1 have something to say to you,” he said bluntly; “and the 
truth is I don’t know how to say it. You see 1 have not mixed in 
women’s society — I know little about their likes and»‘dislikes. 1 
should like to please you, but am afraid of offending you.” 

“ Geoffrey! As if 1 should be offended with you after your kind- 
ness and ihoughlfulness!” she exclaimed reproachfully. “You 
certainly know next to nothing of women, as you -say. Say on; 1 
promise 1 will not be offmded.” 

He hesitated a few moments. Then he stopped, and said — 

“ I want to marry you— that’s all.” 

Mrs. Drew gasped. His lover-like looks had so entirely stopped 
since the evening on which she became confidential that her cousin’s 
declaration came with the force of a blow. 

“ Oh, dear!” she said feebly, leaning back against a handy garden- 
«eat. “ What — when, oh, whatever can have put that idea into your 
head?” 

“ That is just whai 1 can’t tell,” he answered, somewhat relieved 
now that tne secret intention which had oppressed him during these 
last days at Heathside was no longer a secret. “ 1 like to be truth- 
ful. i really think my determine lion to marry you came from two 
things. . One— oiir position — my being heir to "the land, and bent on 
making reparation to you for ousting you and your child. Two — 


86 


A WOMAK S LOYE-STORY. 


because 1 have felt of late that you and 1 ought to be more to eacLi 
other, that 1 ought to be able to dictate.” 

” And I— ought to obey,” said Mrs. Drew, with a slightly hyster- 
ical laugh. ” Oh, Geoffrey, I wish j^ou had not talked like tliisl 
It has made me feel myself dishonored, as it were. 1 cannot help it 
— 1 do not feel like a widow ! 1 still feel a wife— don’t you uncler- 
stand? My husOand and 1 never had any farewells. VYe ceased to 
be together— that is all! 1 realize nothing but that; all the horrible 
tale of his new wife and his children seemed like a nightmare 1 His 
death— well, that 1 have hardly believed. 1 have not seen him ill, L 
have not nursed him, he did not die in my arms! 1 almost fanc 5 r 
sometimes that she is his widow, but 1 am still his wife — that some, 
day we shall be together, and all will be forgiven and explained.” 

” Ah!” ejaciuared the colonel meaningly. ” Would 5 mu mind, 
lighting my cigar for me?” — his one .arm, though handy from long, 
habit, led to his asking help more often than he wished. ” Thanks,” 
he said, as Mrs Drew struck a match and lighted the cigar he had 
handed to her. 

Then he smoked for half a minute without speaking, while Lilian 
Drew felt bewildered, wretched, yearning ivith a vague longing for 
she knew not what. Just at this juncture, when another woman 
might have felt almost triumphant at bringing such game as this de- 
termined bachelor to her feet without indeed having shot at him,. 
Lilian felt depressed, miserable, utterly aione. 

“Lilian,” said he, “you are a visionaiy. It won’t do. Yon 
must give it up. You had better make up your mind to many me. 
You shall be happy, 1 promise you!” 

“ Happy— when 1 cannot love you?’' questioned Mrs. Drew hope- 
lessly. 

“ 1 will love you enough for us both,” said the colonel, with a, 
smile. 

‘ That is not the same thing— you know that!” she went on, ex- 
asperated by his slight smile, plainly visible in the white ligliL 
“ Did you not tell me only the other night —day, 1 mean— how you 
loved that girl in India— how, when you saw her coming or heard 
her voice or her footstep, or detected the perfumes she used, your 
knees trembled under you, 3^011 turned giddy, your heart seemed a 
dead weight in 3 mur chest? That was love, if you iike— this is not. 

1 am not such a simpleton as to think i\. You mistake your feelings 
toward me, Geoffrey,” she went on bitteTl 3 ^ “ You pit}^ me — you 
want to be generous— that is all. ” 

“ And you are ungenerous, without meaning to be,” returned the 
colonel. “ When that affair happened that I told you about, she was 
a girl, I a mere boy. It was a 3 "oung man’s passion— that was all. 
Love is a very different thing — love is unseltlsh. Then you and 1 
are middle-aged. You cannot have the feelings of a 3 ^oung girl — 
3 mu, who are mother, and have been wife— any more than 1 can 
have the feelings of a young fellow who 'svould lie awake at night 
and write verses and lie at your feet staring at you by the hour to- 
gether— a fellow who would make a fool of himself before marriage, 
but would not be-awaie of it till afterward, when the shock would 
be something like a header into ice weaker.” 

“ 1 do not agree with you,” said Lilian, coldl 3 % offended by the. 


A ayomak’s lo ye- story. 87 

colonel’s coolness and self-possession as much as by his speech. 
■“Love is unselfish — well and good; but it is not cold. It just 
chows itself as you say. If it is not that sort of human idolatry at 
first, how can it staud the wear and tear of married life, with its 
cares and troubles?” 

” Oh, 1 understood you to sa}^ that you never loved Captain Drew 
in that way— that you were glad when he went ont; you preferred 
the society of your lady friends!” 

‘‘ That has nothing to do with the question,” declared Mrs. Drew, 
the blood rushing to her cheeks and ears. “ 1 did not love my hus- 
band in that way; and it was just the knowledge of this which made 
me feel as it l.were partly responsible for his loving another woman.” 

“You have not loved your husband,” said the colonel, gravely 
throwing away his cigar, ‘‘ and you do not love me? Who is it then 
— who is the happy man who has made you feel as 1 am almost 
‘amused at having felt when 1 was an unfledged lout?” 

” No one!” cried Lilian impetuously. ” 1 wonder you dare ask 
such a thing! 1, a married woman, too! But I have read Byron, 
then Shakespeare’s love-scenes, and Shelley. ” 

‘‘ 1 don’t think even women moon over poetry unless they have* 
been or are in love,’' said the colonel innocently. “However, of 
course 1 know nothing about it.” 

“ ITou are right ” returned Mrs. Drew, turning round sharply 
and beginning to walk toward the house. 

The colonel joined her, and they followed the path in silence. 
The colonel was peifectl}^ satisfied. This was no passionless, im- 
movable abstraction in the shape of a woman! The quiet Mrs. Drew 
had shown not only wounded vanity, but anger and jealousy during 
this short interview, while her emotions had been stirred. “ 1 can 
make her love me with a doglike love,” he told himself. “ She shall 
not be my slave; but 1 bet that a year hence no one will be able to 
say with truth what they are so fond of saying about some newly- 
married couples— ‘ the love is all on one side.’ ” 

While he was thinking thus, Lilian Drew, in her annoyance, 
pique, and perturbation, almost disliked him. 

They were on the terrace. 

“Lilian,” called Mrs. Ware from within the lighted drawing- 
room, “ have you your little shawl, my dear? Remember the dew, 
Bnd your thin muslin.” 

“ Your dress may be damp; you had better go in at once,” said 
Ihe colonel, touching her shoulder lightly with his one hand. “ L 
suppose you would like to say ‘ No ’ to me before 1 go. Well, 1 do 
aiot intend to give you the opportunity. Invould nof accept any an- 
swer to-night, as 1 have taken you by surprise; and early to morrow 
i shall be off to town, and the night-mail will carry me far away be- 
fore midnight. 1 shall travel for a month; then 1 shall come here 
for your answer. Meanwhile— Heaven bless 3^ou and your child — 
and the dear old folk!” 

Then he stepped into the drawing-room, said good-night and good- 
by to his aunt, and went off to the squire in the smoking-room. 

“ 1 am very sorry the dear boy is going,” said Mrs. Ware, quite 
•affected by the stalwart colonel’s affectionate farewell. “ Ah, Lilian, 
things do go cross in this world! 1 can’t help thinking sometimes 


88 A woman’s love-stoey. . 

how' different everything would have been if you and Geoffrey haa 
come together, instead of your being thrown away as you were.” 

Lilian treated her mother’s speech lightly, as if it’ were a joke.. 
Then she took up a book; her eyes followed the words, the lines. 
She turned over the pages; but she had not the remotest notion of 
what she was seemingly so studiously reading. 

She was thinking; and her thoughts were scarcely ordinary or in 
any way like her usual gentle thoughts. She was thinking that, in- 
stead of refusing the colonel, it would “serve him right” if she 
were to marry him and make him hotly, desperately and madly in 
love with her. 

“ How 1 should be revenged for this talk to-night,” she said to 
herself, “ if 1 could turn round some day and remind him that such 
love was only for foolish boys, and not befitting sober middle-aged 
folks such as he and I!” 

vlt was a reflection quite unworthy of her; but for that one thought 
she was to be punished, if suffering be a punishment for evil 
thoughts. 


CHAPTER XV. 

Mrs. Drew awoke in the night, thought of her peculiar position, 
said to herseli that the colonel "was a brute— only wanted to marry 
her to simplify matters and to play the benefa-ctor— and solved her 
difliculties by crying herself to sleep. When Mary entered quietly 
the next morning and opened the shutters, the light hurt her eyes; 
so she knew sIkj had the beginning of a bad headache, and asked for 
her breakfast to be brought upstairs. When it came, a letter from, 
Lilith was on the tray— a short note. 

“ Oh, dearest mother, 1 am— we all are in such trouble! Willie 
has had an accident to his head; he is still insensible; and it was my 
fault. 11 you could only come! Mrs. Law is dreadfully angry with 
me, and I do not yronder; but 1 do not care for that. Aunt Mac- 
donald says nothing, and is wonderfully patient; but she looks so 
white, and as wretched as if she believed Willie would die. Oh, do 
come if you possibly can to your unhappy Lilith!” 

Mrs. Drew read it twice; then she quietly pushed aside her break- 
fast-tray, and slid out of bed. Presently, when Mary came- in to 
see after her mistress, she found her dressed and arranging her bon- 
net as she stood before her cheval-glass. 

“ 1 am going to town, Mary,” she said; “ 1 may be back to-night, 
or 1 may not. ” 

“To town, ma’am! And pouring with rain as it is, and you look- 
ing so ill? Dear— dear!” 

“ 1 may bring back Miss Lilith perhaps,” continued her mistress, 
in an absent way, her thoughts absorbed by the news just received. 
She was ghastly white, and, in spite of the close Sultry morning, 
shivered as she'went down-stairs— flrst^ into her mother’s bedroom 
to explain. 

She read Lilith’s letter to Madam Ware, who was having her cap 
pinned on, and was relieved to find that her mother understood her 


A woman’s love-story. 


89 


wish to answer the appeal in person. Then she ordered Uie carriage, 
gave housekeeping directions, caught the early train, and in a few 
hours was knocking at the door of the old house in Prince’s Square. 

The butler insisted upon taking her into the dining room, where 
Mrs. Law sat sternly in state to rebuke all who approached her. 

She received Mrs. Drew as if she were a culprit, just touching the 
tips of her fingers. 

“ The sad importance of this unfortunate accident cannot be over- 
Tated,” she said gloomily. “William Macdonald is our heir. He 
will inhei’it the estate in Hampshire, now let to Sir Francis Booth 
for a term of years ; and this house will be his also. Until now he 
has been !Mr. Law’s sole interest in lile. Indeed, but for William, 1 
believe Mr. Law would have insisted upon returning to India, and 
would therefore have been dead ere now, for no man with only a 
morsel of liver left as big as my thumb-nail could live many days in 
India - that every one knows. And all this— this hitherto most de- 
sirable state of things,’’ went on Mrs. Law irrelevantly, after a short 
pause to take breath, “ has been brought to an end by your daugh- 
-ter’s carelessness. Of all the flighty, self-willed, ungovernable — ” 

Here the door opened and Lilith flew into the room. Once moi’e 
mother and child were in each other ’s arms. Mrs. Drew felt. her 
daughter’s heart beating fiercely against her bosom; but when they 
'drew apart she saw that Lilith lotrked composed. There was some - 
-change irt her. She wore one* of her girlish dresses; but she 
looked a woman. She would have been thought eighteen or nine- 
teen. Her hair was gathered back and fell in a long plait to her 
waist. Though there was a look of anguish in the large eyes with 
the blue circle that told of sleepless anxiety, there was no wildness. 
Lilith was tamed! 

“ Have you heard? Has Mrs. Law told you?” she asked. 

“ 1 am too unnerved to repeat the story,” said Willie’s aunt pet- 
tishly, “ You had better take jmur poor mother up -stairs — indeetl 
1 shall be unfit for anything if you do not keep out of my sight. ” 

Lilith took her mother to the drawdng-room, and related that 
Willie was taking her for a walk oneevening, when her foot slipped, 
and she fell, crossing a road. A carriage came dashing round the 
corner, and, in t lying to snatch her from under the rearing horses, 
suddenly checked by the coachman, Willie was knocked down. 

“ One of the horses kicked him,” she said. “ How awful it was! 
Some men and 1 took him to a hospital close by; then Mrs. Law 
came in the carriage with her own doctor, and brought him home. 
It was two days ago. 1 could not wrile yesterday — iTlelt too dread- 
ful ; but they say iie may live now, although he is still unconscious.” 

Mrs. Drew soothed and comforted Lilith. She was, as it were, 
-steadied by this unexpected trouble. Yesterday and the colonel 
seemed a feverish dream. She made Lilith lie down; then she took 
off her bonnet, and, going to the door of the sick-room, knocked. 
Mrs. Macdonald came to the door, and, seeing who it was, joined 
.Mrs. Drew in the passage. 

“ 1 am glad you have come,” she said, “ for poor Lilith’s sake.” 
'Then she exonerated Lilith from all blame. 

“ 1 shall take her home,” announced Mrs. Drew. 

Perhaps it would be as well,” said Willie’s mother. “ You see, 


90 


A woman’s love-story. 


it would not do quite to let her help to nurse him, although she fs 
ready and willing to do it, poor child. The fact is, Mrs. Law thinks 
her too old. She says the neighbors have talked about their being sa^ 
much together, as it is. That is nonsense, between you and me,’^ 
she added. Then she asked Mrs. Drew if she would like to see 
Willie. 

Mrs. Drew shrunk a little, but said “ Yes.” Mrs. Macdonald, 
opened the door. It was s simple room, hung with engravings.. 
Over the mantelpiece was a pencil-drawing — to Mrs. Drew’s aston- 
ishment, a portrait uf herself, with flowing hair and a crown. NO' 
one, perhaps, would'have recognized that it was intended as a por- 
trait. But she well remembered Lilith’s sketching her one day as< 

- Mary was brushing her long hair. The crown had been added since.. 

She looked away, slightly startled at such a curious incident — 
‘ away to the other side ot the room, where there was an iron bed- 
. stead, beside which sat a nurse, who rose as she and Mrs. Macdon- 
ald approached the bed. 

“ Sit down,” said Willie’s mother, gently pushing Mrs. Drew 

- into the vacant chair. ” He will not know, or take notice. He only 
moana at noises— sometimes. ’ ’ 

Willie’s face was turned away on the pillow— his head was band- 
aged; but his breathing was soft and slow. 

” 1 believe that he will get well, that he is better,” said Mrs. Drew 
confidently to the mother and nurse. 

Then she Went to Lilith, who was leaning in dumb despair against" 
the painiing-rooin window. Sinc*^ the night when William Macdon- 
ald promised jMrs. Drew to protect and care for Lilith, he had gradu- 
ally made himself indispensable to the girl. AVhile living his own^ 
working lite, he had actually lived for her. It all seemed so plaiix 
to Lilith now as she looked out at (he black gardens — the dying 
leaves dropping with the steady rain and the clouds of smoke born© 
downward making a dismal picture. She had been exacting too^ 
and on one or tW'b occasions, when he was unpunctual, had beerr 
almost disagreeable in her manner to him, who was always cheer- 
fully kind. When her mother came in and said, “ He is better; 1 
feel sure he will live,” she burst into a fit of sobbing; but this 
broke the ice, and she spent the next half-hour in passionate eulo- 
gium — extravagant,, even for Lilith. 

” This is lhat calf-love Colonel Geoffrey sneered at,” thought her 
mother; ” and he of course loves her.” She sighed — sighed as one 
disabled by age may sigh, watching the gambols of young creatures 
in the exuberance of youth’s grace and freedom. 

She was loath to grieve her child ; but, when Lilith spoke of- 
the time when she should be allowed to see the patient, she at once 
told her that she would return home lhat night. 

Lilith begged and entreated; she coaxed, argued, even fell at her 
mother’s knees ana embraced them; but this made Mrs. Drew still 
firmer in her determination — only slie softened matters by suggest- 
ing that, when William Macdonald was better, he should come ta 
Heathside for change ot air. 

After this had been proposed to Mrs. Macdonald, wdio seemeQ 
pleased at the idea, Lilith took leave^of old Mr. Jiaw, who looked 
disconsolate at the loss ot his playfellow, which Lilith had managed. 


A woman's love-story. 


91 


to be whenever she coulcl-^which meant when the haish house-mis- 
iress was out of the way. He patted her head, blessed her, and 
told her he hoped she would come back soon — a kind good-by from 
the helpless old -gentleman, which was counteracted by his wife’s 
stern dismissal of her young guest. 

This was in the privacy of Mrs. Law’s gaunt forbidding-looking 
’bed-chamber, whicn, hung with dark green moreen and clotiied in 
carpet and furniture of a hideous sage tint, was Lilith’s horror. Mrs. 
Law sat down with hands folded on her lap, and harangued. This 
parting oration wpuld have served capitally as a dry lecture on 
duty. Lilith wriggled and twisted as she stood inwardly counting 
the number of times that word — never a favorite of hers — occurred 
in the lady’s speech, when suddenly— her feelings had a habit of 
rising to the surface with a rush — she impatiently said— 

“ Why do you talk about duty? Have 1 not worked and worked 
at things 1 hated? Isn’t that doing my duty?” 

‘‘ That is merely preliminary, ” answered Mrs. Law. ” You have 
idled away your own good time, and my nephew’s still more pre- 
cious time, by these ridiculous walks, when you might have been 
reading some instructive book, and be assisting me with my truly 
heavy work of keeping Mr. Law amused. Vou ought to have—” 

Here she gave a little start of surprise. Lilith suddenly said. 

Good-by, Mrs. Law, and thank. you for everything,” and flew out 
of the room. 

“ 1 have done for myself now,” she told her mother, who was 
waiting for her below — the carriage was at the door. ” Ho; 1 can- 
not apologize — there is no time — we shall miss the train.’'’ 

Ah, she was yet untamed, still unstable, thought her mother. 
Still, as they journeyed home, Lilith’s high spirits, her amusing de- 
scriptions of the drawing-school, her monkey-like imitations of the 
students, fascinated her mother. But Mrs. Drew found herself 
wondering how it was that this young Macdonald had come to ad- 
mire Lilith, as his late devotion to her proved he must have done. 
“She had her fascination, this lithe brown creature; but it was the 
fascination of originality and passion. There seemed so little that 
was feminine, tender in her ; and of beauty she had not a scrap. 

” There is no accounting for tastes,” tiiought Mrs. Drevv. 

Then she asked Lilith how it was that she did not wish to return 
to l\lis. Law’s. How was it that she was content to leave this favor- 
ite friend? 

“1 have never heard you sneer before,” answered Lilith, sud- 
denly grave and reproachful, looking full at her mother with her 
big dark eyes. “ Favorite friend. Well, he is my favorite friend! 
He ought to be! But 1 know him well enough to be certain that, if 
he wants to see me, nothing will prevent him. He may look bo}^- 
’ish; but he has a man’s pluck and nerve, or 1 should never have 
cared for him as 1 do. ” 

“ Yes, 3'es,” said Mrs. Drew, with slight uneasiness— she was not 
anxious for a second rhapsody that day — ” but these are scarcely the 
days of knights taking to horse and riding in search of the hidies 
they admire. There are so many of us now. We have limited splieres 
of action. We must elbow our way through the crowd, or we 
fenock against some one who may return the knock with a venge- 


92 ^ 


A woman’s LOYE-STOTIY. ^ : '~ 

ance, even to throwing ns to the ground to be trampled by the 
struggling crowd. No, my dear child! 1 had hoped you had 
learned to give way. ” 

But, mother, you don’t understand! "Willie means soon to have 
a town house of his own, and he was to build a studio lor me. 
Whenever he w^as silent, he^told me he was planning the future.” 

“ 1 suppose he thought 1 should allow you to go and live with 
him and Mrs. Macdonald!” said Mrs. Drew, with a curious laugh. 
“ Charming— delightlul castles in the air! • Ah, my dear. Cousin 
Geoffrey will be the one to manage you with his sober common 
sense!”" 

“ 1 hate Cousin Geoffrey — at least, the man you described in 3 rour 
letters! How could 1 like any one that is going to supplant us— to 
take away our home?” 

” He dues not intend to do so,” said Mrs. Drew; but she changed 
the conversation— a slight flush rose to her cheek. “1 am tired„ 
dear,” she said— once more the gentle, almost pleading mother that 
had seemed somewhat different to Lilith during these last liour^. 
” It is tiring to ta^k while this rattle and roar goes on.” 

Lilith subsided obediently into her corner of the compartment 
which they happened to have to themselves; and she watched for 
choice bits of field and fell, woodland and river. The rain had 
stopped. The soft haze lying on the landscape was tinted by the 
pale rays of the misty sun. 

Ml’S. Drew lay back wearily, her head— she had removed her 
bonnet— supported by the blue padding of the railway-carriage. She 
dreamed; she did not sleep; her dreams were day-dreams. She- 
went through probabilities and possibilities. She thought of Lilith, 
and Willie being married. She imagined them before the altar, hand 
in hand. The idea was singularly distasteful to her. It was almusfe 
irritating. Then she thought of her Cousin Geoffrey and herself. 
That idea was nauseous — almost horrible! 

”1 shall be prepared with my answer when he comes- back, little^ 
fear of that!” she assured herself. ”1 shall enjoy saying ‘ No.’ li 
will be one of the pleasantest moments in my life.” 


CH APTER XVI. 

It was a calm August evening. The harvest was over; the last 
roses were halt hidden by the dying leaves. The hall windows glit- 
tered golden red in the sunset. This was the day that Willie Mac- 
donald was to come to Heathside Hall ” to be nursed,” as Mrs. 
Drew worded it. A fortnight before she had longed to have the 
forlorn little lad, her husband’s only son Gerald, to lavish her ten- 
derness upon; but Colonel Ware and Mr. Rawson had taken the 
affair of the actress and her family completely out of Lilian’s hands. 
Mrs. Drew was not consulted; she was told what had been done. 

And the ways of those two worldly-wise men were not as her im- 
pulsive and somewhat eccentric ways. Gerald was sent away to the 
seaside to be day-boarder at a school where he was afterward to be 
educated— instead of going to Eton and costing Mrs. Drew the 
greater part of her income, as she had intended. The mother was. 


A woman’s LOVE-STORY. 9S' 

Temovecl from the house of her drunken parents to a home where 
she would be nursed back into liealtn, should such a thing be pos- 
sible; and the little girls were placed in the family of a struggling 
clergyman, whose wife would give them maternal care. It was all 
most satisfactorily arranged. Still Mrs. Drew sighed whenever she 
thought of the children. She had proposed that they should cor- 
respond with her, a suggestion which was sharply negatived by the 
Eector. 

Do you wish the unfoitunate children to learn the truth about 
themselves, or do you wish them to think that men may openly 
transgress God’s law and man’s law, and rather benefit by it than 
otherwise?” Mr. Rawson had asked her, far more sternly than Lil- 
ian had as yet heard him speak. 

” That is a hard saying,” she haij- replied reproachfully, for she . 
was nettled. 

However, it had the effect of silencing her. Whatever she might 
do when the children were grown up, she felt she was not to be al- 
lowed to adopt them now, as she had vaguely dreamed of doing. 

So she had fallen back upon Lilith. Lilitii was fuller of life and 
energy than ever. She had returned determined to waste uo fraction, 
of her precious time. ^ 

” When 1 first grasped how much 1 had to do, what close drudgery* 

1 must go through before I could dare to call myself a painter, 1 
was frightened,” she had told her mother. 

” For the first time in your life, 1 expect,” Mrs. Drew had replied,, 
with a smile. 

“Anyhow, for the last,” Lilith had said, with a determintion 
wich her mother wondered at. 

Yes, Lilith was changed. The old spirit was there, but in har- 
ness; an(La new,calm but resolute will made the gentle mother al- 
most afraid of her daughter at certain moments. 

“ When Willie Macdonald comes, 1 shall see how he manages* 
her,” she thought; and she looked forward eagerly to the time when 
Willie wmald be well enough to undertake the journey to Healhside. 

Meanwhile she had been happy with Lilith, although slightly* 
fatigued by exertions which seemed .no exertion to the tall lithe girl. 
Lilith was up and out early to paint the various sunrise effects, and 
would come and wake her mother in the gray dawn when the birds 
were twittering. Mrs. Drew meekly arose, and accompanied her 
child; but, while Lilith dashed off bold sketches of extraordinary, 
combinations of color by the half-dozen, Mrs. Diew’s efforts to catch 
a fleeting sky- effect and stamp it on her canvas led to nothing but a 
strange medley of red, green, and yellow streaks, which might have 
been the portrait of anything motley, from a rainbow to a distant 
mass of flower beds. Lilith shook her head at Mrs. Drew’s attempts,, 
and — not without a comforting idea of warm naps in her darkened 
bed-chamber instead of cold morning air on a bleak hill-side — her 
mother gave up sunrises. But, after her housekeeping was over tor 
the morning, she would drive Lilith and her easel and painting para- 
phernalia to some choice spot which Lilitli was making a picture of;, 
she would paint a little also, or work and talk, or wander idly,, 
dreaming of her life, past, present, and to come. This life of hers 
would always be the same, she thought, except that new interests . 


•94 


A woman’s love-story. 

loomed in tlie distance. Lilitli’s children, perhaps, and, some time 
in the future, Gerald and his sisters, were matters to be looked for- 
ward to. Mrs. Drew would thrill with a certain ecstatic sensation 
as she fancied some fair little head nestling against lier breast, 
some warm little creature that belonged to her, depended upon her, 
held close in her arms. 

A rare and sweet smile would rest upon her beautiful face while 
these fancies hovered about her mind. 

One day Lilith, flashing her quick eyes upon her mother as she 
squeezed fresh paint upon her palette, asked her what she was think- 
ing of. 

“ 1 was thinkini! how delightful it must be to be a grandmother,’’ 
said Mrs. Drew, with a little laugh and a blush. 

Lilith looked her up and dowa with a grave curious expression. 
The gill’s mind was already more matured than her mother’s. In 
many ways she saw furl her, sLe grasped truths more quickly. 

You don’t look much like a grandmother,” she said dryly, as 
she recommenced her painting. “It you are so fond of children, 
mol her, why don’t you marry again?” 

Mrs. Drew flushed crimson. 

“ liilith!” she cried, as if her daughter had done her some bodily 
hurt. 

Lilith, repentant, dropped her brush and was full of reg«5tful 
apology, 

‘ ‘ 1 ought to have known better, to have known that you would 
never do that!” she assured lier mother — a speech which was almost 
as distasteful to Mrs. Drew as the last. It was the one disappoint- 
ing da}^ of the whole fifteen that mother and child were tete-d iete. 

To-day Willie was to arrive, shortly before dinner. Neither Mrs. 
Drew nor Lilith had altered her daily programme* They had been 
out; Lilith had put the finishing touches to a landscape. Mrs. 
Drew, arranging her hair before her glass about six o’clock, saw 
Lilith, already dressed, sauntering into the garden. 

“ AVhere are young going.?” she cried, hurrying to the window. 

The train will be in soon; he will be herein less than halt an 
hour. ” 

‘ 1 am going to fetch a book 1 left in the wigwam,” said Lilith 
ooolly: and then she went slowly down the terrace- steps. 

jMrs. Drew stared for a moment in surprise; then she returned to 
her dressing-1 able. 

“ Strange child!” she thought, puzzled. “ She adores him — 1 am 
certain of it; yet, when he is expected, she gets out of the wa}^ Is 
she afraid of betraying herself? It must be that — it can be nothing 
else!” 

She went down-stairs wondering. Her kind little mother was al- 
ready in the drawing-room. As Lilian joined her, she asked the aid 
•of her arm. 

“ 1 must be in the hall, to welcome the iX)or lad, Lilian my dear,” 
she said, as she w^alked slowly out of Ihe room, and into the hall, 
where she sat down on an old oaken port er’s-chair. “He will feel 
lonely, strange —poor young man — tired from his journe}^” And 
there she sat, patiently waiting, whil^ Mrs. Drew, feeling restless 
.and w'orried— she could not think why— went out and listened. 


A WOMAlSr’S LOVE-STORY. 95 

There was no sound but a distant whistle trom the railway. How 
calm and beautiful the park looked, with its lair green slopes, with 
the big trees still, as if slumbering, their stately tops gilded by the 
last sun -rays! What peace this must seem to a weary invalid alter 
the heat, smoke, and noise of a great city! 

Mrs. Drew held her hand upon her side; her heart was beating 
fiercely, yet she had heard only the sound Of far-off carriage wheels. 

“ How stupid!” she thought, in annoyance. ”1 must be out of 
health to be so nervous.” 

But, as she strained her eyes to catch the first glimpse of the 
brougham sent to bring Willie Macdonald from the station, she tor- 
got about her nervous heart-beating. She felt a sudden fear lest 
the cariiage should (irive up empty — lest AYillie should be worse — . 
perhaps— who could tell? — dead. Dead — and through Lilith? Per- 
haps Lilith had feared this, and had gone away into the garden to • 
hide her suspense. Fear chilled Mrs. Drew as she stood in the pale 
evening light. Her eyes grew dim; and could hardly realize that 
this was the'Carriage turning the corner and driving toward her. 

Willie, lying back on tlie cushions that had been packed into the 
brouglmm by Mrs. Drew and her maid Maiy, was languidly luxuiL 
ating in the quiet rural beauty, filled wdtli delightful aiiticipation. 

He felt cruelly worn, ill, exhausted, yet he smiled. 

” It would he good to die here,” he w^as thinking, as they came 
in sight of the gray mansion, and he saw Mrs. Drew watching oa 
the steps. “The angel of gentleniiss and mercy!” he thought, as 
the carriage door opened and Mrs. J3rew smiled upon him. 

It seemed too good to be true to the dazed invalid as the delicate 
lady assisted a man-servant to bring him into this new haven ot lest, 
talking gently and encouragingly ol how soon he would laugh at 
such aids and disdain his nurses. . ^ 

‘‘You have two, sir. Allow me to introduce you to the head- 
nurse,” said Lilian Drew cheerfully, although her heart had ached 
at the sight of the wreck of Willie Macdonald as he painfully 
worked his way up the steps. ‘‘ The head-nurse is very kind, but 
very firm,” she went on; then Willie found his hands clasped by 
little Madam Ware, who grew quite animated with active S3^mpathy 
at the sight of such a thin hollow-cheeked creature,, whose blue eye& ' 5' 
looked ghastly, gazing out of so wan and white a face. 

‘‘You must go to bed at once, like a good young man,” said 
Madam W'are decidedly. ‘‘He is quite feverish, my dear.” So- 
Willie, too Aveak and'too content to resist, found himself led off to 
a bedroom and quickly disposed of by the squire’s own “ man.” 

There, after a kind-faced staid woman had brought him refresh- 
ment and darkened the room, he fell asleep. It was i»erhaps the love- 
liest sleep ot his life. His few troubles and annoyances ot the 
past seemed dead, they did not rise again to trouble him. Fie forgot 
his poor old uncle, his irascible Aunt Judith, his weakly mother, 
his London life before Lilith came, and since. He felt transplanted 
into a place of repose, amid the greenness and bloom ot nature; and 
he felt as if the greatest longing ot his life were there realized, aU 
though he was still almost ignorant of what the longing was, or 
what indeed was its object. 

His dreams wei’o lingering about him as he awoke in the' early 


S6 . A loye-story/ 

mprniDg. A ray of. pale gold came tliroiigli the opening in the shut- 
ters. He was in a huge bedstead draped with flowery chintz: at its 
foot was a sofa. Raising himself on his arm, he saw his male at- 
tendant stretched asleep upon the chintz-covered couch; beyond 'was 
a vvriting-table; on either side of the writing-materials were vases 
containing clusters of white roses. 

His weakened heart gave a leap. White roses! Who had decked 
liis room with these reminiscences of that eventful night when, by 
his innocent connivance, the lovely woman who had worn his gift 
ot just such floweis had to suffer so much with such gentle 
bravery? Could it be Mrs. Drew herself? Oh, no, impossible! The 
bjood rushed to his pale cheek. The excitement ot the thought 
Blade him feel stronger than since his accidentia he coughed loudly, 
awakened the man-servant, and insisted upon getting up. 

At first the man resisted; but the invalid yvks so determined that, 
when Mrs. Drew was talking lo her mother, as she made the tea, 
about their invalid guest, the invalid guest walked in to answer for 
himself. 

There were feminine ehidings and threatenings and forebodings; 
then the nurses reluctantly allo'vved their patient to have his way. 

Willie had not yet seen the squire; he had heard ot bis jollity, 
his kind heart, so often belied by bis rough speech, of his childish 
“ tantrums,"’ as Madam Ware called her husband’s noisy but harm- 
: 3ess fits of ill-temper, and had been amused at Lilith’s anecdotes of 
her grandlathei. He had made a mental picture of Squire Ware; 
and, as the buily form surmounted by the fine old head and kindly 
ruddy face loomed in the high oaken doprway of the Hall dining- 
room, it_was as if his idea was absolutely realized. 

“ So this is our faded flower!”, said the squire, with a chuckle, 
first laying his hand on Willie’s shoulder, then giving one of his 
thin white hands a warm kindly grasp. ” No, no, lad; don’t stir or 
43tand on any ceremonies here. ’Tis Liberty Hall, ye know. What ' 
have these wenches given ye to straighten your back? Bah!” he 
went on, sniffing contemptuously as he went to the sideboard and 
began sharpening a carving-knife. “Eggs! Of all things, b’iled 
eggs! Good enough for chickens just out of the shell! Don’t let 
them kill jmu with their kindness — What’s your name? Oh, MaC- 
•dunald! Eggs? Lump-sugar and groundsel next! Here — there’s 
-a plate of beef— that’ll make a new man of you,” he went on, cut- " 
ting away at a huge round of cold beef on the sideboard — “ and a 
mug of home-brewed,” be added, after he had piled a plate with 
big slices of meat, frothing ale into a silver tankard from out his 
pet jug — a huge brown mug shaped like a head and face. Then he ' 
W’alked round and gravely deposited plate and mug by Willie. 

- Amidst the argument that followed Lilith came in and greeted Willie ' 
as quietly as if this had been the breakfast -table in Prince’s Square, 
with severe Mrs. Law at its head instead of her mother> Then she 
isat down in her place, 'which was next Willie’s, and remained pale 
and silent for a while. She had suffered intenselj^ on the preceding ^ 
day, dreadiug to see a change in her bright-faced friend — a change ^ 
of which she had been the innocent cause; she suffered still more 
when she realized the effect ot the accident. Willie Macdonald ** 
was not only thin and white-faced; there were the lines marked 


9 


97 


A woman’s love-story. 

around his eyes by brain mischiet. He stooped^ each movement 
was languid and heavy, instead of brisk and buoyant. Little won- 
der that Lilith felt hopelessly wretched! 

She got away from the breakfast-table as soon as she could, and 
went wandering aimlessly into the shrubbery. The pleasant work- 
ing time— pleasant in spite of its struggles and disappointments — 
when Willie’s companionship had been her happiness, Willie’s con- 
solation and his way of making fun of her difficulties her great help 
in patiently enduring her life at the drawing school, seemed ages 
ago. 

“ Never to come again,” she said to herself— “ never again!” 

There w^as more than regret in her miserable mood; she was 
weighed down by some evil presentiment. 8he had nerved herself 
to meet her “ hero ” — as her mother, once lapsing into a less sw^eet 
liumor than usual, had called Willie— but, as their eyes had met, 
some sensation of ” it is all over ” bad made her heart heavy. 

Why did she feel that ” all was over”? she asked herself, as she 
threw herself upon the grass on a little knoll in the shrubbery, and, 
leaning on her elbow^s, unconsciously watched the tinj^ weeds, the 
insects creeping through the grass, the dead leaves as they fluttered 
elowlj^ down and fell noiselessly upon the turf. WTiat was the 
'‘all” — and why over? Would Willie die? Mrs. Macdonald had 
written nothing of any danger to life. She had only written that 
the medical authorities said that his brain had been severely shaken, 
and that all work must be rigidly put aside tor a while. That did 
•not mean that ‘‘ all was over.” She began to ponder; she thought 
of the first days when she had almost hated the house in Prince’s 
Square, Mrs. Law, the drawing school, her fellow-pupils, Miss 
Levell, all but the poor little old gentleman Mr. Law — who was so 
’domineered over by his wife — and Willie and his mother. W^illie 
-Stood out from the dark background in her memory as some grand 
picture might hang in a desolate barn. Then, later, she had not 
only felt that joyous happy feeliuir at the sight of hini morning and 
'Ovening; the feeling began to last. Willie seemed wilh her some- 
how all through the drudgery of straight lines, curves, and the copy- 
ing of little cones and balls from the round. He had seemed with 
her, too, through this fortnight of violent painting^ It was only 
when the day of his arival came near that she began to be afraid, 
^meas3^ And now fear, uneasiness, had become a grievous melan- 
choly, actual hopelessness. 

How long she had lain pondering— the leaves dropping upon her 
as if she were a babe in the wood, and the redbreasts busy in the 
branches above — she did not know: but she was roused by distant 
voices, and a laugh she knew to be her mother’s. 

The knoll was a hundred yards or so from the Hall. RivSing, she 
looked over the shrubbery fence, and saw a .group about the steps 
leading to the hall door. A groom was at the head of Madam 
Ware’s little pony-chair, in which she took airings, when not so 
well as usual. Mrs. Drew, in a large hat, was arranging pillows; 
Mary and a man-servant were assisting the invalid down the steps. 
Lilith stood still, watching. She watched the three settle Willie in 
his invalid cariage. She noted the tender way in which her mother 
wrapped one of her Indian shawls— one she preferred too— about his 
4 


98 


A woman’s love-stoey. 


knees: she even*saw, or fancied she saw, his grateful smile. Thens 
the pony-chair came slowly toward her, along the carriage-road. 
It came near. Mrs. Drew was shading the invalid with a large 
white iiiiibrella. Lilith could hear her mother’s voice, talking with 
wonderful animation for her, but she could nut see her face. She 
saw \Yillie’s. His eyes were gazing up toward his new nurse with an. 
expression she had never seen there; she felt a sudden pang, a sud- 
den enlightenment. 

“ That look means admiration,” she thought bitterly. “ And 1 — 
1 could never, never inspire that.” 

At that moment the pony- chair passed, and Willie caught sight of 
Lilith. 

” There is Lilith!” he said to Mrs. Drew, flushing as if ashamed. 

He had certainlj^ forgotten his girl-friend while watching the vary-^ 
ing expressions of her mother's face. Mrs. Drew was pleasantly 
excited; she was in her element, tending and Cfiring with the affec- 
tionate solicitude which with her replaced the ” love ” of ordinary 
women. Lilith thought so, as her mother looked up and asked her 
if she would come wiTh them. 

“ Isever mind your hat,” she added, as Lilith pointed to a torrr 
straw she had a peculiar affection for. ‘‘We will not go beyond, 
the park gates.” 

But Lilith fancied she saw a shade on AVil lie’s face. 

*‘ Lwould rather not,” she cried brusquely and, running down 
the knoll on the other side, disappeared. 

” AVhy, what is the matter?” asked Willie, annoyed He thought 
Lilith unkind. Not that he particularly wanted her flying and dart- 
ing about the other side of the little carriage, as he imagined she 
would fly and dart in the absolute liberty of lier grandfather’s park; 
but he had tried to be so much te her, he felt her manner to be dis- 
appointing. 

“ Oh, Lilith has been anxious, and, now that her anxiety about 
you is nearly over, the reaction has brought one of her queer 
humors!” said Mrs. Drew sweetly. Then she spoke of her child’s 
constant gratitude to him for having taken such an active part in 
her life. 

” Did 1 not promise?” asked the jmung man. “ It has been a little- 
hard sometimes, Mrs. Drew, 1 can assure you. Oh, do not think 1 
am complaining of Lilith!” he added eagerly. ‘‘ She is a genius, 
perhaps a very great genius. Oh, she is so unlike you, so extraor- 
dinarily unlike you!” 

‘‘lam certainly no genius,” said Mrs. Drew, amused' and pleased, 
she knew not why. ” 1 think, if a fair example of mediocrity pure 
and simple were wanted, they might safely come to me. It has- 
been in mv way,” she added, thinking of her freedom from the 
wild impulses that -she had seen, first in her husband, now- in Lilith. 

” Perhaps, if 1 had been able to share these moods people seem te 
have — to take part, as one may say, in the active lives of others— 1 
should have been a happier w'oman.” 

” You told me — you w^ere so good as to tell me— so much about 
yourself,” began AWllie earnestly, though lowering his voice, lest 
the groom who was w-alkihg a short vciistance ahead might hear, 

” that you wull forgive me for asking if you are not happy?- 


A wo:man’s love-story. 99 

'You ought to be. 1 shall never forget what an example of good- 
ness, mercy, self-possession, you showed yourself *that night f 1 was 
reminded of it— it 1 needed to be— this morning. Some one had put 
white roses on my lable.” 

“ Ah,” said Mrs. Drew, smiling, “ perhaps some fairy brought 
those dead ones of yours — 1 have them still— to life again.” 

vViliie gave a slight «tart, but recovered himsejf immediately, and 
hasiily changed the sut)ject. 

“ About rages and ‘ moods,’ as you call them,” he said — ” surely 
-d all persons, do not. admire impulse, passion, all the human 
j* bug which has its root in self?” 

” i scarcely know^” answered Mrs. Drew thoughtfully. ” 1 have 
never aske’d myself, 1 think. Perhaps 1 do; perhaps 1 have the sort 
of wonder at these natures so different from mine that one has for , 
the magnificent in nature — mountains, .thunder-storms, raging winds, 
boiling seas.” 

” You have-not told me— if you are happy,” said Willie. 

” At this moment?” She paused and looked round. ” Well, to- 
day 1 feel strangely light-hearted. The sun seems briditer, the air 
'3weet, exhilarating. Oh, life is very beautiful!” she said suddenly, - 
looking Willie straight in the face, with an innocent surprise. ” 1 
wonder — I do believe I am a person of moods, after all!” she added, 
with a laugh. ‘ i have longed so for some one to take care of. 
Dilith doesn’t want it. 1 believe 1 was born to be a nurse.” Then 
^she told him the tale of poor little Gerald, found under the hedge 
Lv Willie’s uncle, Mr. Rawson. 

” You mentioned a cousin — the colonel — who is he?” asked : 
Willie, after sympathizing with her on the subject of the “ exiled 
children,” as slie considered them. 

” The heir — our successor here,” said Mrs. Drew; but she spoke 
with slight embarrassim nt, which did not escape the notice of the 
-convalescent. “ A middle-aged Indian officer, very nice in his w^ay, 
is my cousin Geoffrey.” Then she related about the afternoon 
spent at the Rectory. “ He w^as so delighteil with the house, the 
dairies, with everytliing,” she added — ” especially wdtli one of your 
cousins her singing, 1 mean. You can imagine what a delightful 
place a peacef ui English homestead like Mr. Raw'son’s must seem 
to a dried-up old Indian.” 

” This — this place must have pleased him still more, 1 should . 
think,” remarked the young man. He had never cared niueli for 
the Rawrson family, he told Mrs. Drew. His cousins he considered 
commonplace, and, as for their mother, ” bhe is more of a Pharisee 
even than Aunt Judith,” he said. ‘‘ My uncle, too, is an average 
Englidi parson.” 

” Hush! You must not say that; he is my best friend,” replied 
Mrs. Drew, with gentle chicling. ” Now, remember, we alw^avs 
jiliow a certain amount of crossness to people who are getting well; 
but it is the nurse’s duty to see that the crossness dots not^go too 
far.” Then she read nim a sweet lecture, which he listened to as^ 
he would have dreamily listened to the song of some favorite bird. 

” You will dictate, and 1 shall obey,” he said, wdien she had con- 
>cliided. 

How curious! This speech was. the very opposite of that the 


100 


A woman’s LOVE-STOEY. ■ 

colonel had uttered in his harsh masculine voice! “ 1 was intended 
to be witli the young oi the old, not with the middle-aged,'’ thought 
Mrs. Drew, with a little sigh. 

This little excursion, this placid interchange of confidences was^ 
the pi’elude to many such. Willie had been ordered to be out in the 
air as much as possible without fatigue. The three ladies took ^li in 
drives in the landau. Mr. Rawson drove him leisurely through the 
lanes in his daughter’s little pony- cariage. But Willie did not care 
for these excursions, although he was grateful to all and each for 
their kind efforts on Ids behalf. The drives were, as he told him 
self, a “come-down ’’after that first morning alone with Mrs, 
Drew. 

“ There is not the slightest doubt that to be alone with a congenial 
sympathetic being such as she is, is the highest happiness man can 
know,” he thought. He grudged every moment that she was oc- 
cupied with others. He felt irritated when Lilith took part in their 
talk. He had often to remember that Madam Ware, who would 
converse in spite ot her deafness, was Lilian Drew’s mother, and 
that Lilith, who was or seemed morose and given to sarcastic say- 
ings, was Liliao Drew’s daughter, or he would have shown his im- 
patience with them. The young fellow was spoiled. He attributed 
his neW-born selfishness to the irritability of convalescence, for he 
knew right well that he was growing less manly, l(,‘ss worthy, each 
day and hour. At this point he did not dream that he was the prey 
of a passion — a passion as unreasoidng and violent as ever seized, 
upon mortal man. 


CHAPTER XYll. 

Yes, Willie Macdonald was in love. But he little dreamed that 
others had begun, it not to suspect, to wonder what was wrong with 
him. The squire had not kno vn him previously, so merely thought, 
sometimes, with a compassionate shake of the head, that the lad’s^ 
noddle had had a worse smash than the womenfolk thought; but — 
kind soul — he was not going to be the one to tell them so. Besides,^ 
when Willie and the squire were together, sometimes for a slow stroll 
round the farm, generally for an after-dinner smoke in the squire’s- 
room, the “ womenfolk ” were not there, and the young man was at 
his best. Meanwhile Madam Ware began to draw conclusions from 
Mrs. Drew’s light-heartedness, Willie’s manner, and Lilith's dismal 
monotony. Bhe was a little anxious, poor lady. These two, her 
daughter and grandchild, were the apples of her eyes. They made 
up the beauty of her life. They were to her like the special variety 
of some plant to the gardener who had evolved it, like thenewly-dis- 
covered planet to the astronomer. Nothing that could happen io 
Lilian or Lilith was trifling to her. She lay awake patiently night 
after night, with the squire snoring the contented snore of the just 
at her side, counting the round white spots cast upon the darkened 
ceiling by the rushlight shade, and wondering how it would end. 

“ Not that I’ve anything against the poor lad,” she said to her- 
self. “ But that poor dear cliild Lilith, baby in years as she is, is 
mad alter him, and he’s as mad after her mother. It’s all nonsense^ 
of course. But I’ve seen the harm of such nonsense time after time^ 


101 


A WOMAK^S LOVE-STORY, 

till I've come to think it isn’t quite s>ich harmless silliness as other 
folk do. Ah, I fear me no good’ll come of this; and the sooner the 
young man takes himself off the better it’ll be for all paities con- 
cerned!’^ 

As for Lilith, her life was almost that of a toad under a harrow. 
She could not bring herself to find out what she thought, or feared, 
or felt. At last came a day when she was wound up to the pitch of 
action. 

She had slept badly, and, getting up early, went into the garden. 

It was a fresh sweet morning, albeit autumnal. The shrubbery was 
deepening to red, gold, and all shades of brown. Heavy dew lay 
glittering in the sunshine, on the smooth turf, on the webs the 
busy spiders had hung upon the rose-trees over-night. Lilith went 
thoughtfully along the gravel paths,'when she stopped short. Willie 
was leaning against a tree, shading his eyes with his haiid; his eyes 
were riveted upon Mrs. Drew’s windows. * He started as Lilith came, 
near, and his look of gladness fied. 

“ O, I beg j^our pardon — it is you!” he said awkwardly. 

Then he turned, and prepared to walk by Lilith’s side. 

” Yes, it is 1,” she said shortly; ” hut 1 did not come to ask you 
to walk with me;” and she turned jound brusquely and walked 
away. 

Her heart was full. She had to confront one of the bitter truths 
of her young life. 

“ Fool that I have been,” she said to herself, clinching her teeth 
and turning her rage against herself— “ fool not to have seen it all 
before! He loves her. That — that boy ” — she paused and thought "" 
rancorously of his youth— “ that boy dares to love my mother! It 
is preposterous, horrible, unnatural! It must be stopped before she 
knows it. ” Then a frightful doubt almost convulsed her, one sharp 
suspicion. “If perhaps — Oh, no; that is impossible!” she said, 
in the fervor of her loving filial faith. “ 8he never can have sup- 
posed such a thing for an instant, good, sweet darling that she is, 
or she would never have invited him here. But I see it all now;” 
and she indulged in miserable retrospection. She remembered Willie’s 
admiration of her mother’s portrait on that first morning in Prince’s 
Square; his constant mention of her; his intense interest and devo- 
tion during Mrs. Drew’s short visit to town; his postscripts to her 
letters to her mother; his persuading her to make a copy of that 
pencil-sketbh for him; his hanging it in his room; then “All his 
kindness, his care, was for her sake,” was the finishing stroke to 
her discovery. Humiliated, stricken— she dared not imagine why — 
she flung herself upon the wooden bench in the wigwam and went 
through her bitter anguish alone. Perhaps shame— the shame of 
having loved so freely, so dearly, where she had not been loved at 
all — was the cruelest sting. For, as the moments throbbed on, she 
knew that, of all beings in the world, the only one who seemed de- 
sirable, beautiful, fascinating, perfect to her, was this man who loved 
her mother. 

She was but a child. She did not recognize that this was a dan- 
gerous attachment which might turn to hate and imbitter her life. 
Her pure natural instincts were urging her to be good, to be patient^ 


102 


A woman’s love-story. 

to restrain, subdue, bridle, and direct these tierce sensations for the 
happiness of others. 

“ She has only me in the whole world,” the poor girl pathetically 
thought of her mother. “My w^retched mistake must not be her 
unhappiness. As if she had not had enough!” 

Then &e clinched her hot hands and made brave resolutions. 
He must never know— she must never know. But the sooner Willie 
could be coaxed to go the belter. That quarter of an hour spent by 
Lilith m the wigwam that morning was a cruel one. But, as she 
quietly came out and composedly returned to the house, there was 
the sense of a victory gained stilling the quick beating of her wild 
heart. 

They were at breakfast when she came in, and she took her place 
as usual. But she tried to talk and to be more genial than she had 
managed to be latterly, while Willie was more silent and did not de- 
vote himself so exclusively to Mrs. Drew. This Mrs. Drew noticed, 
not without a certain pique; and, as she talked even more gayly 
than usual, her color came and went. It was the beginning of the 
storm. 

Breakfast over, Willie strolled into the hall, his hands in his 
pockets. He felt unsettled. The plans for the daj^ were usually 
made at breakfast. But Lilith’s peculiar manner this morning in 
the garden had given him a shock. 

“ She thinRs something/’ he had said to himself, when Lilith 
rushed away. 

This led lo his refleeting. As he reflected, he began to realize the 
true state of affairs, so far as he was concerned. He did not dare 
even think of what Mrs. Drew might or mi^htnot feel for him. As 
for Lilith, she had only a relative existence in his eyes, and no change 
in this sentiment had occurred. She was to him but her mother’s 
child. 

Meanwhile Lilith, with her usual reckless impulse, had determined 
to act. She firmly believed that Willie could “ persuade any one 
into anything.” The idea of him as her mother’s husband was so 
frightful that any step taken lo prevent it seemed advisable. 

“1 will get him alone, and speak to him,” she said lo herself, 
going oft to the parlor, where she knew she would find her mother 
arranging the housekeeping' affairs with the cook. 

Surely enough the cook and Mrs. Drew were closeted together in 
earnest discussion. 

“ in one minute,” said Mrs. Drew, as Lilith came in, evidently 
primed with some important subject. 

So Lilith sat down on the old sofa in the bay-window, and list- 
ened to the serious talk about certain soups and a certain pudding — 
talk more gravely sounding perhaps than the talk of the fate of 
nations in the great halls of solemn-discussion. 

“ After all, do we not live the saying, ‘ Let us eat, drink, and be 
merry, for to-moirow we die,’ whatever we may profess?” Lilith 
asked herself somewhat bitterly. 

The sneer was still on her face when, the door having shut upon 
the cook, her mother came and, gently seating herself by her child, 
took her hand, and said — 

“ What is it, dear?” 


A woman’s love-story. 103 

Something unworldly, tender, careful, in Mrs. Drew’s voice and 
manner subdued Lilith. 

“ I only came to ask what were your plans for to-day,” she said, 
kissing the soft caressing hand. 

“ 1 have none,” said Mrs. Drew, smiling. “ 1 really think that 
our invalid is nearly, if not quite cured, and that he ought to make 
plans for himself. Is it loo warm for a ride? You have not had 
your rides lately, Lilith — because of the heat, of course. But sup- 
pose you and Willie were to ride over to Moor Heath? You might 
have luncheon there, and wander about while the hoises w^ere rest- 
iug.” 

“ 1 shall not propose it,” answered Lilith shortly. 

No; that is my office, 1 expect,” said Mrs. Drew. “ I dare say 
we shall find him somewhere about. Cornel” — aud she preceded 
her daughter along the passages that led to the hall. 

Willie was looking out of the window. When Mrs. Drew pro- 
posed the ride, he bowed, and said “ With pleasure;” but he did not 
smile. 

With a heavy heart Lilith went off to assume her riding-gear. But 
her mother left the “ ungrateful young man,” as she mentally termed 
Willie Macdonald, with a new feeling. Was it misgiving? 

“ Another disappointment!” she thought, almost sadly, as, from 
an upper window, she watched Lilith and Willie ride oft. “ When 
will they end? Is all sweet fruit bitter at the core? Will the bless- 
ing of Heaven never rest upon human love?” 

She had vaguely imagined this sympathetic jmung man as a possi- 
ble relation, nearer than a friend, in the time to come. She had not 
thought definitely as to what his relationship to her would be. She 
had assured herself that her fleeting idea of Willie as Lilith’s hus- 
band was premature and in ill taste; so she had drifted through these 
summer days without steering and without looking ahead. They had 
been delightful days, and they were passing away out of sight, just 
like the figures of Willie and Lilith on their horses,^ which were fast 
dwindling as they trotted across the broad expanse of turf till they 
seemed the size of flies. 

She sighed, then went down-stairs to Madam Ware, who had been 
receiving the village schoolmistiess to talk upon the subject of work- 
ing-materials for the schoolgirls. Theie was naturally some gossip 
between the cheery little apple-faced woman who taught the rustic 
maidens of Heathside, and the open-hearted, open-handed mistress 
of the Hall, over those huge rolls of flannel, calico, and chintz. 
Madam Ware heard all the latest tittle-tattle about who was expected 
to die, or w hat marriages and births were matters of con jecture, with 
here and there a regretful whisper that such a lad, who had prom- 
ised so w^ell, had taken to drink, or that Pavitt’s young sister Letty, 
who had gone to live in London, had got herself into trouble, poor 
silly lass, et cmiem, and listened, only saying, “ You don’t say so!” 
or “Dear, dear!” Hll the little woman made an observation that 
flushed Madam Ware’s delicate withered cheek, and made her re- 
move her spectacles — a habit of hers when perturbed or surprised. 

“ I hope you won’t take it ill, madam; but they do say as Miss 
Lilian— 1 beg her pardon — Mrs. Drew — only the old folks in the vil- 
lage can’t forget that she was their Miss Lilian— is going to be mar- 


104 


A woman’s loye-stoky.; 

Tied again. Borne say it’s the colonel, and others say it’s the invalid 
gentleman. 1 laugh at ’em. ‘Mrs. Drew marry again!’ says I. 

* Two Sundays’]! come in a week before she’ll own to having had 
two husbands!’ ” 

Aud you ai:e quite right, Selina,” said Madam Ware energetic- . 

ally. 

And she would have told her protegee her “ mind,” but that Mrs. 
Drew entered; and the schoolmistress respectfully departed, half 
wishing she had not spoken. 

Madam Ware began arranging her rolls of stuff, with the aid of 
her daughter’s superior strength; then, after these were carried * 
away to be sent to the school, she resumed her knitting, and telling 
Mrs. Drew she wanted to speak to her, she said, in her quiet, dig- _ 
nified little way — 

” My dear, how long did we invite William Macdonald for?— be- 
cause he seems quite well enough now to return home.” 

“ How long?” Mrs. Drew looked sharply at her mother. “ Oh, 

1 am sure 1 don’t know! 1 don’t think any time was named. You 
see 1 invited him verbally through his mother, and the invitation ' 
was indefinite. Why do you want to send him away?” 

Madam Ware expostulated. 

“ Far be it from me to send any sick lad away while he is weak - 
and needs cosseting, my dear,” she said. ‘‘ But, when men are fit 
for their usual day’s work, be it what it may , it isn’t right forwmmen 
to keep them tied to their apron-strings. Your father said to me 
only yesterday, ‘ Those gals are molly-coddling that boy. ’ He came 
■upon you in the corner of the park where they’ve begun at the second 
hay- crop, and he said you were sitting on ‘ a heap of hay, and the - 
lad was languishing on the grass ’ — those were the very words your 
dather used — ‘ languishing and turning up his eyes like a duck in a 
thunder-storm,’ he said to me, ‘ when he ought to be on one of his 
native moors getting the breeze into his lungs and bagging grouse!’ 
Those were his own words,’' said Madam Ware, knitting with extra 
vigoi ; ” aud now I’ve said my say, and I’ve done.” 

“There was no languishing in the matter — Mr. Macdonald Was 
reading to me,” returned Mrs. Drew calmly. “ But, if my father 
thiuks"the young man is not doing w^ell in remaining here, it will be 
as well that he should go. Not that 1 believe in papa’s opinion, as. 
you know, mother; but there is always something in what one man 
says of another. Who is to tell him, or hint this to him?” she asked, 
alter a short pause. “ Shall 1?” 

“ Not it you will be annoyed, my love,” said the old lady, tender- 
ly, any lurking suspicion of a flirtation on the part of her daughter 
dispelled by Mrs. Drew’s ready acquiescence. “ 1 will, if you like.” 

“ Oh, it will nqt annoy me!” declared Lilian. “ 1 should have 
learned my hard life-lessons badly indeed if such a trifle as advising 
some one years younger than myself would be* an annoyance!” 

And she left her mother, holding her head high ^ind inclined to be 
very busy indeed. Her usual occupations — needlework, serious 
reading, painting, visiting the neighbors, poor and rich, keeping up 
a correspondence with family frienc^, and helping the squire with 
his business-letters and accounts — had been utterly neglected since 
Willie’s arrival. Her omissions seemed to fly at her all at once as 


A WOMA^ir’S LOYE-STORY, 


105 


sRe went to lier particular sanctum near the house-top. As she opened 
the door, the half-hnished painting on the easel, the litter ot un- 
washed brushes, dirty palettes, withered flowers, dying plants, were 
so many reproaches. The room that she had loved almost was 
chaotic in its contusion — neglected — veiled in dust. She sat down 
on her painting-stool and looked around. A queer thought made 
her ears burn — this looked as a bride’s former sanctum might look 
when she returned from the long sweet absorption of her honey- 
moon. 

“ No; it’s more like my own mind just now, all sixes and sevens,’^ 
said Lilian, almost angrily to herself; and she set to work bravely. 

After a few hours the room looked itself again. 


CHAPTEK XYlll. 

Meajtwhile Lilith and Willie had ridden to the village, their des- 
tination, in silence. They were both in perhaps their very worst 
humor. Willie felt as if his emotions, especially since his illness, 
had been “ playing the fool with him.” He blamed himself for not 
having recognized and dealt with his impulses. He rode absorbed 
in his own disquieting reflections, while Lilith was wrapped in a 
very dark mantle ot self-hatred. 

“ How weak — how'^meanly weak 1 have been!” was her self-iO' 
proach, as she nerved herself to conceal her real feelings, and to seem 
what she wished to be. 

The inn where Mrs. Drew had advised them to have luncheon 
was a rustic little house standintr alone on the edge of the wide- 
spreading moor. It was a breezy spot. The whitewashed building 
was flanked by a few wind-blown {Scotch firs. The wooden water- 
trough in front was scarred and seamed by the stormy weather, and 
even a mild August breeze swayed the faded picture of the coach 
and horses backward and forward on the sign-post. As the couple 
rode up, Willie called out. The horses snorted and sniffed at the 
trou^; the steam rose in faint clouds from their moist bodies; the 
shadows of passing clouds imrpled the dark furze in patclies; but 
all lay silent in the sunshine, as if there were no life here except that 
of a busy hen clucking excitedly to her wandering, chirping brood 
to come away from the proximity of the monster hoofs of those 
strange panting steeds. 

‘‘One would think they were all dead!” said Willie grimly. 
Then he dismounted, Knocked at the door, rang a shrill bell, and 
stood waiting; but there was no reply. He went back to Lilith. 
” It seems all shut up,” he said. ” What shall we do? Hide on?” 

” There is no other place where we can get anything for miles,” 
answered Lilith; ‘‘and the horses ought to rest here. Stop— here 
comes some one!” she added, as a lad came toward them from the 
road they had just traversed. 

Lilith recognized him as the boy who attended to the horses the 
last time she and her mother drove to Moor Heath to sketch a sun- 
set, and, springing down, asked his help. The boy fumbled in his 
pocket and brought out a key — the stable-key. He could feed tha 


106 


A -woiiak’s love-story. 

horses, he said; but, as for luucii or food tor the riders, his folk had 
gone to a christening and everything was shut up. 

“ They didn’t expect tolks to come their way to-day, they didn’t. 
The coach comes somewheres about once a week, and then the 
missus is a-cooking from early till bed-time. If I had the key of 
the larder, •there bean’t nothink but a beet-bone and bread -and- 
eheese.” 

“ Therefore we must starve,” said Lilith to Willie. 

The situation seemed to break down the barrier of their moods. 
Thej’^ laughed. 

“ I don’t mind for myself one bit,” said Lilith; “ but you are still 
— w^ell, weak, you know.” 

“ 1 am a great deal stronger than I care to be,” returned Willie 
somewhat bitterly, going oft to the shed which did duty as a stable 
to see that the horses really had their food. 

The corn was satisfactory. Presently, after talking to the lad, he 
went back to Lilith. 

” It is all right,” he said triumphantly. “ The safe is get-at-able. ^ 
A silver coin was the key to our friend’s secret. Come in!” 

The lad opened the door. Lilith followed Willie through the 
narrow passage into the deserted tap-room, a tiny chamber with a ' 
sanded floor, with gay-colored prints hanging here and there, and 
benches and chairs ranged against the w'alls, before which stood - 
mahogany tables with flaps, the atmosphere being strongly impreg- 
nated with stale tobacco-smoke and the fumes of beer. 

Willie opened the window and looked out upon the sunlit heath, 
while the lad’s clattering footsteps were heardashelumberingly pro- 
cul’ed bread-and-cheese for his liberal guests. Lilith glanced about 
her. She was to be alone with Willie here; she was to speak of 
matters nearest her heart. She would remember these surroundings ^ 
— the cheap mirror hung with cut yellow paper, the fly-blown map 
on one side, the flaring almanac on the other. 

She watched the boy as he went awkwardly to and fro, first bring- ~ 
ing forks' and spoons, which were not wanted, then a tablecloth, 
which, upon being opened, proved larger than he expected, and lay 
in graceful folds' upon the sanded floor. This overwhelming ar- 
xangement dis1;urbing his rustic mind to a considerable extent, he 
stood and stared at it with round eyes, biting his thumb, till Lilith 
said — 

“Look here! We don’t want this thing.” And, putting aside 
the array of forks and spoons, she assumed the command and quick- 
ly had the cloth folded and put aside. “ Come — I’ll help you!” she 
said; and in a minute or two the little table was spread with bread, 
cheese, beer, plates, and pewter-mugs, and she called to Willie that 
his lunch vras ready. 

He, turning from a contemplation of the sunny heath, a picture 
which forever after would return to him with the recollection of his 
somber puzzled thoughts on that memorable day, looked round. Lilith 
stood behind the spread table. She had a weird expression about 
her, to him, at that moment, her wavy black hair fluffed out around 
and above her dark, almcsi Egyptian face, her shining black eyes 
fixed upon him with their sharpest, most penetrating stare. He 
wondered how it was that this could be the child of that beautiful 


A WOMAJh^S LOYE-STORY. 107 

fair woman whose existence was troubling his soul. He felt a min- 
gled pity and respect for the wild clever girl he had almost loved as 
he would have loved her mother’s^ shadow while that mother was 
away^ who now, while the very touch of that mother’s hand tingled 
about his palm, while the faint echoes of her voice lived in his ears, 
seemed supertluous, something out of place. 

That hard fate, to be a bore, an unwished-for, undemanded thing 
to the one she loved, was Lilith’s at this juncture. Fortunately for 
her, she' was too absorbed by her own emotions and occupied with 
her struggle with herself, even to dream that this was the case. 

“ i don’t want anything, really,” said Willie Macdonald, looking 
disgustedly at the meager preparations, with a sigh of reminiscence 
as he thought of the luncheon-table in the darkened dining-room of 
the Hall — of his invalid delicacies — of the. flowers — of Mrs. Drew 
presiding, and coaxing him to eat with earnest entreaty in her beau- 
tiful eyes. He had played at having a capricious appetite when he 
was honestly hungry, to enjoy her sweet persuasions, to watch the 
varied expressions of anxious solicitude pla}^ about her gentle face. 

From Mrs. Drew and the acme of life-luxuriousness to Lilith and 
country bread-and-cheese and beer! This was a w^orse “come- 
down ” than the descent from the pony-chair, with Mrs. Drew w^alk- 
ing beside, shielding him from the sunshine with her white umbrella, 
to the Rector’s chaise or the family landau. Still Lilith was Mrs. 
Drew’s owm, very own flesh and blood. As he remembered this, 
Willie turned from the window wdth a sigh, resigning himself to his 
fate. 

“ I dare say you don’t like it; but you must eat something, if 
only a crust,” said Lilith practically — “or else mother will seold 
me.” And she cut bread and. poured out beer, and ate herself, to 
encourage her charge. 

“ After all, Lilith, there is something about you which reminds 
me of your mother,” remarked Willie, leaning back and looking at 
the girl with half-closed eyes. , “ 1 used not to think so; but, since 
1 have been at Heathside, 1 have got to know the points of resem- 
blance. It is in gesture, manner, expression— not in feature or 
form.” 

“Ho, not exactly,” said Lilith, with a curious laugh, cutting her 
cheese into tinj^ dice. “ Mother is beautiful, accotiding to the laws 
of beauty; 1 am ugly, according to the laws of ugliness. 1 ought 
to have been born in Memphis centuries ago; then 1 should have 
passed muster. ” . 

“ My dear, 3 mu must not think you are ugly,” returned Willie, 
roused into kindliness. “ Is not beauty in the e^m of the beholder? 
But you are quite right as to your type. Eg 5 Tt has stamped jmu as 
her own; but how — when — that is the puzzle.” 

“ Don’t let us talk about m^yself 1 If onlYl could forget myself 
for even a da}'’, how 1 wOuld thank Heaven!” cried Lilith desperate- 
ly.. “ Willie, I really dislike the topic of mj'self — what I am, whatl 
do,” she added, calming herself. “ Rather let us talk about jmu. It 
is such a relief to see you well again. When are you going back to 
work?” 

“ BacK to work?” Such a question here, now, from Lilith, what 
did it mean? 


108 


A woman’s lote-stoet. 

Yes, back to work/’ Lilitb said decidedly. Y^ou rein ember 
you told me—asked me indeed— always to speak my thoughts right 
out to you, just like you used to me. How much good you did me!” 
she added with a slight gulp — such a lump came in her throat when 
she thought of all that this young man had been to her — how he had 
inspired, consoled, urged her on her upward path with his earnest 
common sense, his brotherly sympathy! “ You are well — yes, actu- 
ally well— now, or you could not look as you do after that long ride. 
1 know I have no experience; 1 am a fool in the world’s ways; but 
^mehow 1 cannot but think that you ought to be at your post — at 

ur desk. 1 don’t exactly say now, to-day, to-morrow, or the day 
der to morrow; but soon — as soon as you can manage it.” 

Ah!” answered Willie, who had fixed his eyes on hers, which 
bad not flinched, “1 thought that was in your mind, Lilith, this 
morning, when you turned from me and left me — alone! Lilith,” 
he went on earnestly, “you really do owe it to me to be frank. 
What does this mean? Why this sadden hurry to send meofl:? Are 
your grandfather and grandmother tired of me? Or — or — did your 
— your — mother say anything?” he added, fiercely almost. “ Bah! 
What am 1 talking about? As if Mrs. Drew would commission any 
one, however trustworthy, to tell an unpleasant truth that it might 
happen to be her duty to tell!” He laughed; but he was perplexed, 
anxious ; and it was but a hollow laugh. 

” You are all at sea,” said Lilith, calmly. “ 1 am not given to 
being a channel for others’ opinions to flow through, for one thing; 
and no one has said anything particular about you to me, foi the 
second thing, except, of course, that you seemed a nice sort of per- 
son enough, and that you were a ‘poor young man.’ I resented 
this at first,” she went on, some inward rage bursting into irony, 
which merely showed itself in an increased coldness and quietude of 
speech and manner; ” but I suppose that it is customary to call a 
young man who has been ill ‘ poor 3 '^oung man,’ isn’t it?” 

“ Am 1 to suppose that you and j’^our mother spoke of me in 
that sweetly compassionate way?” asked W^illie, his color rising. 
“Well, I suppose 1 am — poor. I shall be poo^till— ah, Lilith, 
you don’t know what it is to covet, to desire, t^long for-^not an- 
other man’s goods— no, my life is not at such a low ebb yet, so you 
needn’t look like# that — to crave for something that j^ou know God 
.md man could not blame you for coveting, that you might take 
liouorably before the world and glory in, and no one say with truth 
-that you had no right to it. Well, 1 have a goal,” he went on, pas- 
sionately, rising from his seat and pacing the floor. “ God has held 
out a prize before myej^es — does not every good thing come fiom 
Godv — a prize so beautiful, so pure, so holy almost, that 1 would not 
dare to try to win and wear it if 1 had led a bad or a useless life. 
Yet I see it, as it were, receding from me hourly; do I not deserve 
to be called poor? Y’ou are but a child; still your time will come. 
With you it will be ambition—” 

Here the lad came in, looking scared — for he had heard the raised 
Yoices, and his experience of raised voices was scarcely pleasant-^ 
and Willie checked himself. 

Lilith, w’ho had paled as she heard and felt the confirmation of her 
suspicions that Willie loved her mother, that he had so passionate a 


A Wa^A?5r’s' LOVE STORY, 


109 


rgentiment for one Whom she regarded as a creature almost sanctified by 
her double widowhood, unapproachable by man except with respect- 
lul veneration, replied to the boy’s question when they wanted 
“ th’ ’orses by Now, at once.” 

“ 1 tliought you wished to walk about the heath?” said W'ilUe, 
mot witliout a certain relief that the expedition was half over. 

” J^ot to-day,” was Lilith’s sort rexDl}^; and, gathering up her 
long riding-skirt, she went out and into the stable, where she re- 
bridled her horse herself and mounted by stepping on the manger. 

At that moment Willie was so obnoxious to her that she could 
scarcely have endured touching the palm' of his hand with the sole 
of her riding- boot. Then she rode round to the front door, followed 
by tiie lad leading Willie’s horse, and they trotted o3 homeward si- 
lently. 

The breeze had got the belter of the sunshine. The woods shone 
golden as they trembled in the first soft autumn wind. The sky was 
paling, and long fleeces of woolly cloud were streaming slowly 
across in their passage fiom ocean to sea. These past weeks there 
had been glowing heat, the atmosphere of languid, slumbering pas- 
sion-stormy wmather, when fierce words might seem to come natu- 
rally from the laden lips of a lover, to the accompaniment of thun- 
der and lightning. But on this day Nature seemed in one of her 
serene calculating humors, sending steady breezes to shower the dy- 
ing foliage softly upon the waiting earth, dispatching hordes of gen- 
tle mists to wander to parched spots, to fall mistily upon the thirsty 
flowers and seek out and moisten the withering roots. Insensibly, 
as the two passionate young people, one passionate with t^ie still des-<^ 
peration of the North, the other with the impetuosit}^ of the South, 
inherited from Iry-gone ancestors, rode homeward, chaiged with sen- 
sations that no repression would save from bursting forth ere long, 
the exterior calm came between them, held them back from a 
pitched battfe of words, as byManders might withhold two combat- 
ants, and prevented an explanation which might have altered-the 
current of not only their lives, but the lives of many others. 

They made nj|||||flort to continue their vague interchange, of 
thought. Occasi^Ply Lilith pointed out some house, giv^ing a brief 
account of its inmates, or directed Willie’s attention to some village - 
the church-spire of which rose from among the ti^es. They can- 
tered along side hy side wliere the road was smooth, and Lilith led- 
the way along the narrow lane which was a short-cut home. 

Thus it was by a seeming chance that what happened afterward 
came to pass. It was a chance that led Lilith to propose a nearer 
way home — a chance that led W^illie to assent to a change of route; a 
xihaiice that, just as Willie was about to dismount to open a gate 
which barred their progress, the Rector came along on foot. 

He looked, grave; he iiad been sent for to a dying parisliioner, and 
‘ was now returning home. "But this was not the cause of his gravity. 
The squire had been complaining to him that his “gals” were 
making fools of themselves, and making no secret of his wisli that 
his nephew Colonel Ware and his daughter Mrs. Drew* should 
” make a match of it.” 

“They’re suited to each other down to the ground, don't you 
see?” he had said. Geofirey is a man o’ common sense— no one 


lib A WOMA'N’S love-story. 

can deny that; Iben they're of an a^e, and their marriage would do 
away wiih all bad blood about his having the property". She’d have 
every] him:: he’s got, and he’d have whatought to be heis — exchange 
is no robbery. Now 1 haven’t got no ilM'ev^liug asrainst your 
ne{>hew, young Macdonald; he’s been as welcome to the Hall andt 
everything in it as the flowers in May. He’s a decent sort of chap^^ 
too, "a well-meaning young man in his way, I dare say, and I haven’t 
any call to sa}^ otherwise; but the fact of the matter is that 1 won’t 
have Jiim coming between those two and siroiling sport. Oh, don 't 
say I’m on the wrong tack! I’ve courted the gals in my day, and ii 
isn t so long airo that I’ve forgotten how young tools act the Ro- 
rneo. Hamlet, Manfred business. 1 know it when 1 see it: and, 
wlien a lad ot your nephew’s age goes lying on the grass signing 
and dying at a val’s feet, and when heos-les her over the chess-board 
so that he gets fool’s mate every time, it means something — it means, 
us much as when he sighs over his pipe in my smoking-room, and, 
if 1 tell him a good old tale, he don’t know from Adam what th: 
deuce it’s all about. You can’t interfere? I tell you it’s your 
bounden dooty as the Rector ot this parish— let alone as the young, 
man’s uncle — to put a stop to it!” . 

It was useless for Mr. Rawson to suggest that Lilith, who, although 
a child in years, was a young woman m lioth mental and physical 
development, might be the attraction, that in London Willie had 
been ber shadow. ' 

” Well, 1 don’t coniradict that; but the long and the short ot it is- 
that he’s somebody else’s shadow now,” was the squire’s reply. 
” Age? Dpn’t talk to me of age! W lien 1 was sixteen years old, 1 
was dead gone on the landlad}’'. of the ‘ Grapes ’ at Warnton, who- 
weigiied as many stone as I could count years, and who wore a 
tront and went puffing about drawing the ale like a grampus. 
Young fellows like their fruit ripe; it’s onl}’^ the old ones as have 
the patience to w itch it gettinc ready for ’em on the wall. And 
why’s that? ’Cau«^e they’ve had their taste of the other, and have 
come to the conclusion there ain’t much in it!” 

Before the squire had exhausted his arguinJ|||fi, the Rector had 
promised to do what he could. It was this UPRiise which made 
him look grave when he met Wilde and Lilith. 

‘‘ How are you, my boy?” was his greeting to Willie; then he 
turned to Lilith, and told her he had just been thinking about lu r. 

He w?is patting andsmoothing the chestnut mare’s shining neck 

” 1 want to talk to you about a painting ot yours,” he went on 
” It I liad not been so busy, I should have called at the Hall. When 
can I see you? WJien are you coming our way?” 

‘‘ Now, it you like,” said Lilith. “ You would not mind riding 
liome alone?” she asked, turning to Willie. ” I should be bacK long 
before dinner.” 

” Not at all,” answered Willie, as inwardly relieved to be rid of 
Lilith at this juncture as she felt relieved to be quit ot him So she 
turned the chestnut’s head, and walked her down the wagon road 
through the fields toward the Rectory, 'while Willie went on through 
the wood alone.' 

At the end of the wood he would erherge into a lane. At tire end 
of the lane he would find himself opp? ’ park gates. 


A womak's love-story. 


Ill 


He looked around. The wood was so still, green shades' unlold- 
Ing betore him, drooping boughs on either side. Stray sunbeams 
came and fell upon the path, shattered, as_it were, into fragments by 
the underwood before they scattered themselves upon the roadway. 
There was but a stir among the foliage now and then. As Willie 
listened to the horse’s footsteps, to its breathing, audible in the sb 
lence, his thoughts flew before him to the Hall, to Mrs. Drew. 

He niust speak to her. 

“ If 1 did not speak— now— to-day— this very hour r— it would be 
cowardly, it would be deceitful,” he decided. 

He touched his horse’s flanks Jwith his riding- whip. In less than 
twenty mintues the steed was in his stall, and Willie was searching 
ior Mrs. Drew. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Mrs. Drew was not in the drawing-room; nor was she in the 
library. W illie was walking restlessly through the rooms and about 
the corridors, when he met the maid Mary, who told him that her 
mistress was in the garden. 

He went eagerly out upon the terrace. The great white vases with 
the heavy green aloes stood out against the sky as they crowned the 
stone balustrades. The garden-seats were unoccupied. A chair 
stood crookedly in a shady corner, as if it had been hastily pushed 
aside. Over it hung a crimson shawl. The hound, Watch, was- ly- 
ing close by, as if guarding this. Recognizing Willie’s footstep, 
Jie merely unclosed his e 5 ^es, and, lazily wagging his tail, contented- 
iiimself with watching his kind London friend’s movements as he 
descended one of the flights of steps leading to the flower-garden. 
Although Watch guarded the household and its belongings, he fol- 
lowed only his mistress Lilith, for whom he was waiting. 

The beautitul Ifllian Drew was not to be found among the stately 
dahlias, or under the crooked apple-trees. Willie went almost anx- 
iously to and fro between the yew tea-pots and peacocks, under the 
spreading walnu^i’ees, too, where they had sometimes sat. Two 
chairs were cozilf^jlaced under a chest nut -tree, as it leaning toward 
each other. She was not there. Then he went down a grass-grown 
path between the tall laurels, a path that led to the wigwam under 
the poplar-trees. 

The wigwam —a thatched hut, open in front opposite a cutting in 
the heiige which framed a sweet picture of smiling fertile woods 
mid fields— was fnrnislied .with a hammock, a rustic table, and light 
-easy-chairs — wooden frames slung with canvas. 'Willie came upon 
this suddenly; and, as his eyes sought the dark interior, he hardly 
realized that the recumbent figure in the uammock was that of Mrs. 
Drew. 

He stood for a moment, fearing, wondering, abashed. As his eyes 
grew accustomed to the dimness within the wigwam, he saw the 
lovely little head perched on a cushion, the perfect profile he had 
dreamed of when asleep, and had watched w rth admiration while 
-awake, standing out against the background of the dark wooden 
wall, as if molded in alabaster. He saw that the queen of his 
iieart was there, alone, asleep. He stood gazing at her as if spell- 


113 A woman’s lote-stokt. 

bound. He took off his hat. As a breeze rustled among the poplar- 
leayes, it seemed as it some voice whispered that the ground where- 
on he stood was holy. He felt reverent, devout, as he had seldom 
felt, even in those young days, the days when he, though a boy, had- 
learned to know what religious fervor meant. He knew that he 
ought to turn aside, tor, unnerved as he w^as, this was not the time 
and place to consult with this beautitul w'oman as to his comings 
and goings; he longed for the strength to turn away, to go back 
through the garden pathways to the house, and there to wait for the 
right moment when he might speak with good sense and deep re- 
spect. 

But the more he urged himself to be g^ne, to move away, the 
more his eyes riveted themselves upon this Sleeping Beauty. He 
hated himself for his weakness, he detested the strength of his devo- 
tion to this gentle woman. He tried to think of her as wife, as 
mother — Lilith’s mother; but these thoughts meandered harmlessly 
about his emotions without leaving a trace of their progress. She 
was to him as a goddess, an idol, a being to be w orshiped wdth sac- 
rifice — the sacrifice of his very will, if needs must. 

He looked up into the chilly blue of the cold evening sky; but 
there was no help there. The poplars rustled their tall crowns. 
Howm below, the dahlia-blooms seemed like red and yellow eyes, 
gazing derisively at him, as much as to say, “Why this fear? Why 
not ‘ go in and win ’? What is there against thee as a suitor for this 
Sleeping Beauty more than there is against any other?’" 

This was true. Had he not an estate, a fortune to expect? Would.' 
not Mrs. Drew be robbed of her really rightful inheiitance by the 
arbitrary la ws of male primogeni ture ? W as there so very much reason 
in his hesitation to tell her that she was his first and only love? Why 
did he feel as if his love for her was akin to a crime? 

He felt that he could not given, satisfactory answer to any of these 
adverse questions concerning his sentiments; so he was encouraged. 
Without further comment, he stepped noisily up the step, his riding- 
boots clattering upon the wooden floor of the wigwam. 

Lilian sprung up in the hammock; her blue eyes were dazed with 
sleep. She supported herself by one of her fairTiands, the other 
went up to rub her eyes. 

“ Oh— dear —me!” she said drowsily. Then sense and memory 
grew clearer. “ 1 have been— asleep. It is you— Mr. Macdonald!”’ 
She gave one surprised look at Willie, then slipped down and stood 
opposite him. “ I lay down to think out a vexed question — a regu- 
lar problem which has been bothering me,” she said, with a smile 
and a blush; “ and, instead of thinking, I fell asleep. Oh, dear, I 
have been dreaming too! Where is Lilith ?'” she added, with sudden 
alarm. “ Where is the child? I remember no\VI I dreamed that 
she had fallen off her horse — L saw that chestnut mare of hers ca- 
reering about on her hind legs, pawing the air. You are sure she is 
all right?” she went on, forgetting her confusion at having been;, 
found thus by Willie in her anxiety about Lilith. “ Where is she?’^ 

Willie speedily calmed her fears, explaining that Lihth had gone 
to the Kectory, accompanied by Mr. R^^wson himself. 

Mrs, Drew sunk into a chair, and, with a little sigh of relief, asked 
W illie the time. 


A W0JIA2!r’S LOVE-STORY. 


113 - 


“ Half -past four,’’ he said, s^lancing at his watch. 

“ Nearly tea-time,” remarked Mrs. Drew, suddenly remembering 
that her muslin dress was crushed, and that a great lockot hair tum- 
bling upon her shoulder added to her disheveled appearance. She 
cou’d scarcely walk to the house, looking as she did, escorted by 
Willie. 

‘‘1 am certain you must feel dusty after your ride,” she said^ 
hoping he would take the hint and depart, “lam sure you will be 
glad of a cup of tea. By the time you are ready I shall be in the 
drawing-room prepared to wait upon you,” she added. 

But Willie sat himself decidedly down upon the rustic table, fie 
put aside liis riding-whip, and drew oft his gloves. 

“We have loads of time,” he saidfteterminedly. “ Mrs. Drew,” 
he added lirmly, “ 1 came here to have a talk with you, and speak I 
must.” 

She gave him one curious inquiring look, then seated herself, her 
heart sinking just a little. 

“ Yes?” she said doubtfully, looking grave. 

All the brightness had faded from her face at the very idea of his 
having “ a talk ” with her. Willie’s hopes — whatever they might 
be — were disconcerted at the very outset. 

“ Lilith — has been telling me — 1 ought to go back to London,”’ 
he began awkwardly, taking up his whip and examining a flaw in 
the ivory handle; “ so 1 came to ask you if you had commissioned 
her to give me my conge.' ' 

“1 — commission — Lilith! What do you mean?” asked Mrs. 
Drew. Up went her head with her sensation of wounded pride; 
then, as she thought, “ First, my mother said this, now Lilith,” 
the blood rushed to her cheeks. 

“ 1 mean what 1 say,” said Willie. 

“ As it — as if— it i wanted to tell you you were wasting your 
time 1 should delegate a child— my child — to say so, instead of ad- 
vising you myself 1” Mrs. Drew gave a short laugh of annoyance. 
“ 1 did think you knew me better!” 

“You have told me the truth — your thoughts — without meaning 
it,” said Willie, mingled anger and a wild feeling of unreasoning 
passion fighting with his eftorts at self-control. “No one likes ter 
hear truth and to tell it better than I. You think 1 am wasting my 
time. 1 am not, so far as 1 am concerned. Listen! YThen 1 found 
that my accident would lead to my coming here, 1 blessed that ac- 
accident, just as a few minutes ago 1 blessed my good luck that 
Lilith gave me an exctise to seek a private interview with you.” 
Mrs. Drew half rose. 

“ Whatever are you talking about?” she said, although her heart 
was beating quickly, tor she felt what must come, if some chance 
did not bring an interruption., “ 1 really don’t understand you.” 

“ You will understand me presently,” answered the young man^ 
rising and strengthening into the semblance of far maturer manhood 
by the very force of strong feeling. “ First, about this question of 
waste of time. 1 am not bound to work— at least, not by the rules 
of society. Perhaps you do not know that by and by 1 shall be— if 
I live — a rich man. 1 do not say that the estate which will come 
to me is as beautiful as this ; but the rent-roll is larger. Then 1 have 


114 A WOMAlSr’S LOYE:STOEY. 

private property apart. If 1 did not feel that — that in worldly cir- 
cumstances I am what the world calls ‘ a good match,’ 1 should not 
be here— now. ” 

He paused. There was no mistakiug the burning look that he 
flxed upon Lilian Drew. Feeling that to construe his words into a 
declaration of love for Lilith would be absurd, the once wife, now 
widow, thought, All is lost.” Her moral strength was ebbing fast. 
She turned pale, and fixed her eyes upon him with dread. This 
man, so young — a boy in comparison with herself— to be taking the 
law into his own hands, to be seemingly subjugating her will by the 
power of his own ! It was terrible! 

“ Ah,” he cried triumphantly, as he read her recognition of the 
truth in her face, “ you know!’^ Then he put aside her outstretched 
hands; he took no more notice of her little cry of fear than if it had 
been the chirp of a bird his gun mi^ht be pointed at. 

He raised her, almost unresisting, into his arms. He told her of 
his love, his adoration: how it had sprung up at the sight of her 
portrait, had grown and strengthened during his long talks with 
Lilith about her mother — her sweet injured mother; how it had 
leaped into the furious passion it now was— as smoldering fire 
^breaks into flames when fed with oil— at the sight of her— actual, 
living, in the flesh. Love had given Willie Macdonald patience, 
earnestness; now it gifted him with tenderness, eloquence, solicitude, 
a daring, too, which could not offend the most shrinking and 
fastidious woman, even did she not already love him. 

Ashe held Lilian Drew’s slight trembling form in his arms, as if 
she W’ere some precious creature that would vanish or melt if he lost 
that hold; as he kissed her hair, her dress, the hand that lay limply 
against his breast — in all his daring not dreaming to touch her pale 
lips with his— she felt as if in a new world, under different condi- 
tions. Struggling feebly against herself, she said incoherently— 

” Leave me! Have pity — 1 am weak, fired!” 

But, saying, “ My wife — my beautiful darling wile!” he merely 
held her more closely to him, as he repeated endearing wmrds — words 
of tender respectful hope. For a few minutes Lilian Drew was the 
prey of impulse. This w’^as her first taste of that dangerous draught, 
earthly joy, which so often poisons those who dare to diink of it. 
She was loved, and she loved in return. She struggled vaguely to 
repulse her young lover. Her age, his age, her widowhood, Lilith 
— these thoughts came startling her out of her delicious apathy. 
Then came the sound of a clear ringing voice outside — 

” Mother! Where are you, mother?” ‘ 

It was Lilith. Her footsteps were approaching upon the gravel 
path. ' She had heard that her mother was in the wigwam. She 
did not know who was. there also. Mrs. Drew sprung away from 
Willie, mechanically smoothing her hair. He reassumed his seat on 
the table. 

“ OhI” Lilith looked disconcerted as she saw him, he meeting her 
eyes with a new reckless expression. “1 did not know you were 
here. Tea is ready, mother. ” 

Very well,” said Mrs. Drew. 

Lilith and a revulsion of feeling had arrived simultaneously. 
Shame, self-reproach, and passionate love w^ere making her desper- 


A WOMA^^’S LOYE-STORY. 115 

ate. She was, as it might be, gambling with her life. One chance 
was lett, 'Which — what should it be? 

“ Tilr. Macdonald has been asking me whether 1 did not think he 
ought to go back to London and to his work,” she said, looking 
hist at her daughter, and then, almost desperately, at WiHie; “ and 
I told him that 1 thought he ought to return as soon as possible. 1 
may seem rude,” she added, with a laugh — yes, actually with a 
laugh!—” but sometimes one has to be rude in this life to do juslice 
to otheis.” Then she slid her arm within her daughter's, and the- 
two went walking toward the house as if nothing had happeue^d. 

W"us it caprice, was it acting, or was it true? AViliie stood for a 
moment, feeling stunned. Could it be possible, hethoughi, aahe 
looked at the hammock, the table, the lounging-chairs, that a few 
moments since Mrs. Drew was lying on his breast as bis future wife? 

Failing to understand his beloved, he. walked slowly toward the 
house; but he had not the heart to go into the drawing-room and 
talk nothings over the tea-tabie. “I do not pretend to histrionic 
taleni,” he said to himself. He w'ent to his room, and walked about 
restlessly till it was time to dress for dinner When the man-serv- 
ant brought his hot water, he also brought him a note. ” The ex*, 
pjaiiation,” he thought, revived by the sight ot Mrs. Drew’s hand- 
writing, He could scarcely wait'till the man retired, alter fidgeting 
about the room lor some purpose or other. After the interloper wa» 
bolted out, his trembling fingers tore the envelope apart. WhaT 
was this? 

” Dear Mr. Macdonald, — Y'ou took me by surprise this after- 
noon, and 3 mu must not mistake a manner which was really half 
faintness, half unconsciousness. Tlrere can, of course, be no ques- 
tion ot our relations, which are those of good friendship. Do not 
mistake yotir own feelings. The young are onl 5 ^ too apt to do Ihis,^ 
to their lasting misery. Kow you must make yoar own pfans, and 
stay or go ju^t as it pleases you. You will tind me the same as be- 
fore the little effervescence of this alternoou, which no one can re- 
gret more keenly than youi faithful friend, 

' ” Lilian Diffcw.” 

At first Willie was in a rage. He tore the letter to fragments. 

” 1 wilt go at once,” he said, tearing his clothes from their rest- 
ing-places and wildly beginning to pack. 

But, as IS generally (he case wlieu people are in a state of violent 
excitement, nothing would go right. As he flung his coats upon 
the bed, Ihe}^ liinibled off upon the floor. His portmanteaus refused: 
to be unlocked — patent keys have an objection to berashly dealt with 
— his shirts fell lupply asunder when he essayed to arrange them iii. 
piles. The blade of a razor flew out and gashed his finger; stanch- 
ing the blood calmed him. 

” Why should 1 rush off all in a hurry because a woman is capri- 
cious?” he asked himself, as the second dressing-bell rang. 

Then he remembered the lovel}^ expression in her eyes when they 
were raised to his as she lay in his arms. That expression could 
mean— only one thing! 

” 1 shall stay,” he said; and he soberly returned his belongings tO' 
their drawers and pegs. 


116 


A woman’s love-story. 

When the dinner-bell rang, Mrs Drew, nervously fluttering about 
the drawing-room, saw Willie come in, tranquil, sedate, firm. Be 
6aid a few words to Madam Ware, then came across to her. 

“1 received your note,’’ he said, with an air ot possessorship. 
You were quite right, 1 dare say, from j^our point of view: but 
you must excuse me it 1 tell you that it made me laugh, and has 
had no effect upon me whatever.” 

I'hen he crossed over to Madam Ware, and, escorting her with 
mt»re than usual care, devoted himself to her for the rest of the even- 
ig, wiiile Mis. Drew was sick at heart, and Lilith looked darkly 
1 , wondering. 


CHAPTER XX. 

The moment comes in the lives of most men who possess any 
energy when they desire somewhat with the whole power ot their 
being, and, desiring, turn all their efforts to obtain, be it fortune, 
fame, supremacy, or a wife. 

Willie Macdonald was twenty-eight. He had lived actively, but 
soberly. Full ot vivacity and determination, he had commanded 
both these qualities. He was master ot his passions. Looking back 
upon his lite, there was no ghost to start up and confront him, the. 
memory of no pale agonized ’face convulsed by his agency into tlmt 
expression of pain. There was nothing important that he would 
have wished undone. Bo, when an honest and laudable affection 
filled him to the full, he promised to be invulnerable. 

He was determined to make Lilian Drew his wife, and she knew 
it. She read it in his face that night at the dinner-table, and after- 
ward in the drawing-room. And, though she loved him, she read 
it with dismajq because she feared that the girlish heart of the curi- 
ous, reticent Lilith had been already given unasked to her ” hero,” 
as sire herself had teasingly called Willie to Lilith. 

”1 must know, 1 must find out,” she told herself recklessly. 

If Lilith loves him, he must go, or 1 must go; we must not meet 
again except in totally different circumstances.’' 

So she went to Lilith’s room that night. The girl had just un- 
dressed and had got into bed. Her mother sat down, and talked 
about ordinary matters in her usual caressing way; then she sud- 
denly spoke of Willie. 

” bo you know,” she began, “ I thought you two were much 
greater friends than 1 find you are. You have thrown Mr. Mac- 
donald a great deal on my hands during this visit, child.” 

” Oh, we are good friends enough!” said Lilith, roughlj^ jerking 
aside her mane of black hair, and vindictively thumping her pillow. 

But Willie, when he is at work, is very diffeient from the loung- 
ing, dreamy, absent young man who has mooned about here these 
last weeks. If he had been like that when 1 first knew him, 1 should 
have had a contempt for him, instead ot liking him as 1 did.” 

” But you — you like him still?” interrogated Mrs. Drew, feeling 
guilty. 

“When one has liked, one can’t uhlike to order,” said Lilith, 
■Stretching herself out at lull length and staring at the ceiling. 

■** Borne may perhaps; but 1 can’t.” Anyhow, 1 shall like Willie 


A woman’s LOYEr story. 117 

much better wlien he has gone back. He is doing nothing. Even 
it he does not work in town, he can see after old Mr. Law and — and 
read in the Museum to improve his mind. An^jthing is better than 
getting you talked about.” 

Thus Lilith blurted out the truth. She had not meant to be so 
sudden in telling her mother of her talk with the Rector that after- 
noon. But Mrs. Drew had led up to it; so she had to listen to vil- 
lage gossip— how some people. paired her with the colonel, and 
others with the sick man she had tended so afiectionately. 

“ 1 can’t imagine why they busy themselves like that with your 
affairs, mother. It is positively exasperating,” declared Lilith. 
“You look too young and too pretty— that’s what it is. You will 
have to wear gowns like grandmother’s, and hide that hair of yours 
away under a cap. Oh, no, though, 1 couldn’t bear that!” 

“ Age comes soon enough,” said Mrs. Drew, kissing her daugh- 
ter’s forehead. “ Meanwhile you must make haste and be grown 
up and get married; then they will have your business to amuse 
them.” And she went off to her own room, flushed, in a humor 
-that, for her, was desperate. 

“1 married!’^ mused Lilith bitterly. She had managed to hide 
her feelings bravely through the evening. Even Mrs. Drew did not 
dream that her daughter had read a mutual understanding in her 
and Willie’s faces, and that anguish was wringing her very heart. 
“ He loves her, he loves her!” Lilith repeated to herself. “ And — 
«ven if she does not return it — he will marry her.” 

All through her sleepless night Lilith la}'- hoping that the colonel 
would come back, fearing that even now her mother might have 
been betrayed into promising herself, imagining the wedding, pictur- 
ing Willie as— oh, horror and detestation! — Willie, who had seemed 
such a boy, with such boyish ways— her step father! 

“ One thing is, grandfather would not hear of it, grandmother 
would hate the idei^, and Mr. Rawson— Oh, she would never go 
against us all!” said the poor child, feverishly tossing under this 
which promised to be her first real trouble. 

Meanwhile her mother was in a curious humor. 

“ I have* done what .1 could,” she assured herself in a quiet man- 
ner which was tinged with obstinacy. “ And I intend to put my 
own inclinations aside, w-herever my duty to others is concerned, to 
the very end. More 1 cannot do.” 

And she undressed leisurely and retired to her couch without 
siicddiiig a tear, or in any way betraying excitement, indeed the 
startling scene with Willie in the atternnon liad not disturbed her 
tranquillity as she expected it would. Or was it that she had uncon- 
sciously given herself over into his hands, to be dealt with accord- 
ing to his pleasure? 

After sleeping quietly, she rose early and went into the garden as 
usual. He was there before her. He came out from under the 
chestnut tree where the two garden-chairs were placed, and, taking 
her garden -basket and scissors from her, said— 

“Sit down.” 

She gave an embarrassed laugh, as if he were in jest, treating her 
as if she were some little schoolgirl; but she sat down nevertheless. 

“ Give me those gloves!” he said. 


118 


A woman’s love-sxoet. 

Certainly not!'’ she answered. 

But lie simply seized her left hand and drew oft the thick glove- 
she wore when gardening, kissed it, and laid it in the empty basket 
at his feet. 

“ That one will do,” he said, holding her struggling hand. “ It 
is of no use struggling,” he went on, tightening his grasp, and fix- 
ing his eyes upon her. “ You may wriggle and writhe and freV 
and put yourself and myself to a great deal of useless tiouble; it 
will be no good; I mean to have you. 1 love you— j'ou love me—” 

”1 did not say so,” interrupted Mrs. Drew, flushing. ”1 w’as 
going to speak to you seriously about yesterday. At the moment 1 
was too surprised, too— too shocked,” she said, trying to be digni- 
fied. ” You were very, very ungentlemanly !” 

‘‘ 1 mean to be still more so,” announced Willie coolly. He had 
seized her ring-finger, and w^as drawing off her wedding-ring and 
the guard her faithless husband had given her shortly after their en- 
gagement. ” Do 3 ^ou see this?”— putting both rings into his waist- 
coal-pocket. You have said good-by to that farcical emblem of a. 
broken tie. Y’ou will not see those rings again in a hurry. Y'ou 
will w-ear this — drawing a ring with a single diamond which had 
belonged to his dead father from his finger, ""and placing it on hers 
— ” till 1 can place another one there.” 

” 1 cannot! You must not talk of marriage,” said Mrs. Drew, 
half yielding, half amazed at this taking of herself by storm. 

” You had no right-;-yesterday — to call me hy that name! I am — 1 
mean 1 have been— a wife!” 

” iS^o; that 1 den}^” replied Willie firmly. “That miserable 
union was a fiction. What do 1 say? it was more; it was an out- 
rage — an outraae upon the holiest, most beautiful tie in nature. 
You have .yet to learn what that is; but you shall learn. 1 have 
sworn to myself that j^our life shall be full of joys — shared with me; 
full of kindness, help to others, shared by me — at least, all the toil- 
ing difficiilt part— and that ho griet shall enter your beautiful heart 
till it has spent its fury in mine first.” 

“ You are too hard upon me!” said Lilian. It was as if her 
power of resistance had gone from her with her “ poor rings,” as 
she had sadly called them to herself sometimes. “ You forget I am 
so much older ^ 3 ’ears older than you are. Then what would people 
say? It would lead to a family quarrel. Fancy my father! 1 can- 
not think of it; it is absolutely impossible!” 

Willie smiled to himself — an elated little smile. He had scarcely 
expe< led capitulation so soon. For he knew that, Tvhen a woman 
begins to aigue with a man about the possibilitj^ or impossibility of 
Iheit being husband and wife, she has virtually capitulated. 

Here the breakfast-bell rang and recalled Lilian Drew to the sense 
of the fitness of things. 

” Give me my rings. Don’t let us talk nonsense. Here is yours,” 
’she said, holding out Willie’s ring, with a pleading look. “ Come 
■ — there’s a dear boy!” she added, speaking as she bad spoken — half 
in jest— when he was a weak invalid anti almost childishly^ obstinate. 

“ Do not make me look ridiculous.” 

” If it were only^ a mattei of seeming ridiculous. 1 should have an 
easy task before me in carrying you off himph,” answered AYil- 


119 


A woman’s LOTE-STOHY. 

lie, rising and taking some steps toward the house, but taking no 
notice of her outstretched hand holding the ring. “ People are wel- 
come to laugh as much as they please. There is not too much 
laughter anywhere. No; we — or rather I— have some difficulties to 
.go through before we can begin our life together. 1 am prepared 
lor them. What— putting the ring in your pocket? All right; you 
will wear it by and by.. 1 don’t care whether you do now or not. 
Well, first, there is a prejudice against a man — whatever his years 
•—marrying a woman older than himself. The striking instances of 
happy marriages where the wife has been older go for nothing. 
If there is only a month’s difference on wdiat they persist in calling 
the ‘wrong side,* every one is up in arms prophesying disaster. 
They forget the importance of a woman’s influence over a man, and 
bow much more likely it is that for that influence to be good where 
a woman has learned her life-lessons. The squire is no philosopher; 
lie will object. Your mother — Well, from whac 1 have seen of 
her, she will not care for me as a son-in-law. As for my people, 
my mother will like anything that promises me happiness; and, as 
for the rest, whatever they say to me or of me will go in at one ear 
.and out at the other.” 

“But Lilith?” said Mrs. Drew. Each moment she was becoming 
more entangled in this strange web, and felt herself, to her con- 
sternation, more and more in her lover’s power. “ Fancy— you— 
Lilith’s — Oh, it is preposterous!” she exclaimed, pausing and try-, 
ing to be firm, to end this sweet fooling once and for all. “ Cannot 
^ou see how horribly unnatural it is for us to be discussing such an 
arrangement? Why,” she went on, her face aglow with a buming 
blush, “you look hardly older than Lilith; you might be her 
brother!” 

“ All 1 know is that you look very beautiful!” said Willie, with 
the fond impudence of success. “ If you wanted jne to give you 
up, you should not look like that. Come— let us go in and have 
our last half -hour’s peace. I intend to make a clean breast of it to 
every one concerned, to take them all by storm at once. But a 
storm it will be, unless 1 am considerably mistaken.” 

3Irs, Drew turned to speak; but Willie slid rapidly by, threw 
open the dining-room door, and stood there with a bow and a mock- 
ing smile. The squire. Madam Ware, and Lilith were all there. 
There was nothing for it but to walk in and behave as tmconcernedly 
as she could. The victim went to her doom; but she was no un- 
willing victim. In spile of the unpleasantness of what she still con- 
sidered the “ false position,” there was a new joy in her heart, a 
<iertain mischievous pleasure natural to human nature in the pluck- 
ing of a species of forbidden fruit; a holiday feeling, in fact, which 
made her feel and look years younger. 

Lilith, pale, serious, with large dark circles round her tired eyes, 
read her fate in those two faces — faces that were both so dear to her 
apart, but the sight of which together thus was almost insupporta- 
ble. But Madam Ware prattled on to AVillie, and the squire, who 
was going to a sale of yearlings at a stud-farm some miles away, 
hurried through his breakfast, both of them utterly unsuspicious of 
;the startling disclosure that awaited them. 

“ Can I speak to you, sir?” was Willie’s first shot, as the squire 


120 


A WOMAiq^’S LO YE: STORY. 


rose from his chair, and was fumbling in his pockets for the marked 
catalogue of the sale, his thoughts full of a certain bay colt he knew 
a neighboring farmer was “ sweet upon.” 

” Speak to me, lad?” The squire could not find the paper, and 
was racking his brains as to where he could have put it. ” Why, 
I’m off to the stables; but, if you like to walk down with me— 
Bless me, there’s the thing!” hesaid, diving into his breeches-pocket 
and drawing out the catalogue. “ I’d give any one a fi’-pun note if 
they’d tell me how it come there. 1 could ha’ sworn I had it in my 
coat-pocket. Of all the — But it don’t matter; only I wouldn’t 
ha’ lost that, with Squire Brown’s marks against the lots, for any- 
thing. Here, come along, lad!” he went on, going out in a tre- 
mendous hurry. ” What is it? Going home?” 

“Not to the home you mean, ^quire, certainly!” said Willie. 
“ It depen ds_ upon you, to a certain extent.” 

The squire, who was going steadily down the path that led 
through the orchard to the stables, his empty pipe between his teetk 
and his hands in his pockets, looked round somewhat startled. 

” What are you talking about?” he asked sharply, thinking that 
when he said to himself the lad was daft he might not have been so 
far from the mark. 

“I want your consent to my marriage with your daughter— Mrs* 
Drew,” said Willie, slowly and distinctly. 

“'God bless my soul !” exclaimed the squire, so taken aback that 
his pipe dropped from his mouth and shivered into pieces on the' 
gravel without his noticing it. ” Lord ’a mercy save us!” he add- 
ed piously. “ You don’t mean to say as you want to marry a mar- 
ried woman — a widow, I mean — a boy like you? There, hold your 
longue like a sensible lad, d’ye hear? I’m not angry ,” he added 
pacifically, looking askance at Willie as he took ofi his hat and 
mopped his forehead. ‘‘ I know you’ve got jmur senses all right 
enough, except just where the horse — mischievous brute! — kicked 
you. He’s left a bee in your bonnet,” he went on, with confused 
compassion. It’ll be all right when you’re home with your own 
folks. Only, for mercy’s sake, don’t go talking like that to the 
W'Omen! 'D’ye hear?” 

The squire was forming vague plans of sending for the Rector to 
convey this young madman aw^ay at once — away anywhere, out of 
the women’s way. 

“ He’ll be asking me for madam, next, or the child!” bethought, 

“I have spoken to Mrs. Drew,” said the jmung man quietly, 
“ and she was aware that I was about so ask you this. It is a mere 
matter of form, of course; she is of age.” 

” Upon my word!” cried the squire, his temper rising as he began 
to recognize that this was something more than a freak of an injured 
brain. ” I wish to God the colonel was here to take ye to task for 
a piece of impudence! Marry you indeed! Why, my darter, if 
ever she marries again, ’ll marry her cousin. Colonel Ware — my 
heir! But what am I thinking of, parleying with a young tellow 
who comes to me and dares say my Lilian’s a jilt! There’s many a. 
man u’d knock you down, sir, for less than that. But I don’t for- 
get you’re my guest; only, if you don’t give me your word that 
this fool’s talk don’t go any further — There— what am I talking^ 


A avo:man s loye-story. 


121 


rf ?” he went on, looking bewildered. “ You say my only gal— my 
own gal has told a boy like you to come and ask me. to let you be 
her husband — my gal, who’s never done anything that wasn’t sensi- 
ble, whose opinion I’d ha’ taken on any subject befoie that of any 
man 1 know, girl though she is? You want , me to believe she’s 
been playing fast and loose wilh her cousin? AYhy, her marriage 
■with my nephew the colonel's been the talk of the country round!” 
The squire paused, breathless. 

Willie felt a jealous pang. His love for Lilian Brew was too pas- 
sionate not to be keenl.y — ay, and even unreasomibly — jealous. It 
was this first attack ot jealousy which led him into an uncliivalrous 
action. He took Lilian Brew’s rings from. his pocket, and, holding 
them out, said significantly — 

““I see, sir, you require proofs that I am not a liar!” 

There lay poor Lilian’s pearl and diamond circlet glittering in the 
zun. The squire recognized the ring at once ; his expression changed. 

“’Now, sir, perhaps you believe me,” said Willie, re-pocketing 
•the lings. 

” Ko, sii, 1 don’t,” blurted out the squire. ” 1 remember seeing 
a play once where a poor innocent girl come nigh to her death 
through a villain hiding himself in her room ahd stealing oft her 
arm while she lay asleep a bracelet her husband had given her. I’m 
not one ceitainly to say as stage-plays and real life’s the same. But 
what can happen in one can come to happen in the other. 1 don’t 
say as you’ve stole my gal’s rings— far from it; but 1 do say — and 1 
mean — as I won't taire any man’s word against any of my women- 
folk — no, not if it was a king on his throne! And, if you’ve got a 
spark of a man left in you after betraying my gal to me by showing 
me rings which, if she had ’a’ given them to you, ought to ’ve been 
kept sacred between your two selves, you’ll come back to the liouse 
wi’ me now and let me hear w^hat she’s got to say in the matter!” 

” Willingly,” said Willie, turning and keeping pace with the agi- 
tated old man. Although his warfare w^as more of an undignified 
skirmish than the orderly campaign he had planned, he was still 
buoyant, hopeful, resolute. 

To reach the hall door they must pass the terrace ; the long draw- 
ing-room windows opened upon the terrace. While the afternoon 
sun glared upon that side of the house, the gay Italian blinds were 
drawn down: but during the morning they were not; and, as the 
squire hurried by the first window, Willie saw Mrs: Brew and 
Madam Ware sitting together on a sofa, Mrs. Brew’s fair head 
.bending close to her mother’s csp. 

” The ladies are there,” he said to the squire. 

” Where?” asked the squire; then, perceiving them, he knocked 
at the window. 

” Why, if it isn’t your father back again, and in one ot his tan- 
trums!” said Madam* Ware; while Mrs. Brew rose and opened the 
long window. 

Willie gave her a proud encouraging smile as he followed his per- 
turl ed host into the room. But Lilian had already made up her 
mind that with this man lay her^chance ot a real actively happy, 
almost a glorious life. She had decided. The quiet calm of deci- 
sion was shown by her expression, by her bearing. 


122 A woman’s love-story. 

The squire gave her a look of angry inquiry : then he turned ta' 
his wife. 

I’ve come back,” he said. ” This youns: gentleman here has 
scared me finely, coming after me with a rare tale. Egad, my girl,. 
1 don’t halt like to tell ye! Here!” he went on, turning to ^iVillie. 
“ I’ve no lime to spend on tollies. Out wi’ the gal’s rings and beg 
her pardon!” Then he stopped short. 

Mrs. Diew bent her head; she was red to the roots of her golden- 
brown hair. Bo the murder was out! She could imagine that her 
father had disbelieved Willie till the rings became a necessary piece 
of evidence. 

” Why, you don’t mean to say as it’s true?” The squire’s blue 
eyes blazed as he looked from the young man, who seemed stalwart 
and strong, despite his late weakness, by the very force and strength 
of the position he assumed, to Lilian, ashamed, drooping. ” Well!’" 
The “ Well!” -was a concentrated cry of wonder, disgust, disappoint- 
ment. After one glance of mingled pity and anger at Mrs. Drew— 
he could not bring himself to look at the young man who had quietly 
walked in between his hopes of Lilian’s marriage with the colonel 
and their fulfilment — the squire turned to Madam, who was looking 
through her glasses, wondering and guessing, and said, ” 1 leave 
this precious pair of fools to you. P’r’aps, being a woman, you’ll 
understand them — 1 can^t. Here, you two!” he went on, waving 
his hand toward the culprits — he could not bring himself to look at 
them. ” Years ago, Lilian, w^hen you came back here to the old 
home, 1 swore to myself 1 wouldn’t be the one to cross your wom- 
an’s whims. I knew you’d have yom whims, or you wouldn’t be 
a woman. Well, 1 never thought you’d get it into your head to 
marry a boy, or I’d never ha’ swore that oath; but, having swore, 
I’ve got to stick to it; so 1 can’t prevent ye, though in my opinion 
you’re going into the blazin’ fire after being well-nigh frizzled to 
death in the frying-pan. There— I’ve no patience to talk about itt 
1 wash my hands of ye. Madam there can take the matter up if 
she likes. I’m off ’’—and he made for the window and strode off, 
muttering to himself, to the stables. 

There the men flew at the sight of his purple visage and angry 
eyes. 

' ” There’s sufiint mortal wrong,” they said, as he rode off on his 
big black mare. They had not seen the squire like that since the 
day when he received the news of the unworthy Captain Drew’s 
death. 

” He’ll have a fit afore he’s done,” said the old groom, who owned 
to having served the Wares ” a matter o’ four-and-twenty years or 
so,” and who went to fill a pail at a pump outside to watch if his . 
burly master rode straight. He was relieved in his mind when he 
returned to the stable-yard. ” T’ parson’s cornin’ along,” he said;. 

“ parson’ll talk him over; he allers does. It’d be a bad day for the 
lot of us if parson took it into his head to move hisself, like parson 
Redgrave did at Warrum ” — Wareharn, a neighboring parish. 

Mr. Rawson, who had felt uneasy since his interview with Lilith. on 
the previous afternoon, was bent oil finding out the actual position of 
affairs, aud, if he could not alter it, at all events to help all con- 
cerned as far as he might. From long experience of human crises^ 


A WOMAN S LOYE-STOKY. 


123 


^rom long sympathy with the mner joys and loves of human hearts 
which had been bared to him as they could never have been had his 
own been less full of love for his fellow-creatures, he had learnt to 
read that difficult alphabet — the outward manner. He had read in 
Lilith’s manner yesterday, first, that she loved Willie Macdonald 
with a precocious woman’s love; secondly, that she feared a mar- 
riage between him and the mother she had until now adored. Think- 
ing back, the Rector’s conclusions were supported by facts — Willie’s 
devotion to the ungainly, unattractive Lilith, his rapid recovery at 
the Hall. * 

“ She — she has actually yearned for an object for those affections 
of hers- lying fallow all these years,” thought the Rector of Mrs. 
Drew, as he rode swiftly through the park. “Lilith went away; 
then I prevented that boy Gerald— the actress’s son — from usurping 
the position which was the very last he was entitled to. Why could 
she not take to Colonel Ware? It would have been so completely 
satisfactory, fle is a nice man enough — but, no, it must be that 
boy! It is more than annoying.” He looked annoyed until he met 
the squire, then he felt dismayed. 

“ A nice kettle of fish!” blustered the squire, reining in the mare; 
then followed a disjointed account of “ that lad’s impudence ” and 
“ Lilian’s folly.” “ Do what you can, won’t you?” he asked Mr. 
Rawson almost pleadingly. “ Though it’ll be no good. Lilian’s got 
my obstinacy. If she sets her heart on a thing, she’ll have it. 
You say he’s a ‘ good young man.’ So he may be; but he isn’t heir 
to the Hall ; and he ain’t a colonel who’s seen life. That’s what 
riles me as much as anything.” 

Here the Rector said all he could in favor of his nephew. It was a 
delicate position for him, for, having been instrumental in placing 
Lilith with his sisters in London, he had unconsciously brought these 
two— Mrs. Drew and Willie Macdonald— together. 

“Of course he would never have dared to propose marriage, 
squire, if he had not as good expectations as any young man of his 
position in London,” said the Rector soothingly; then he briefly 
related how Willie, although he had sensibly accepted a Civil Serv- 
ice appointment, was independent so fai as income was concerned. 
His father had left a comfortable capital, which was. allowed to 
accumulate, except for the small income drawn by the widowed 
Mrs. Macdonald. Then, apart from this, Mr. Law had made him 
his heir, and he had great expectations from an eccentric bachelor- 
uncle— the head of his father’s family. 

The squire went on to the sale somewhat pacified, although, to do 
him justice, he did not care so desperately for Wealth. He would 
rather Lilian had remained widowed and acting mistress of the 
Hall. His content in the idea of her marrying the colonel was 
purely and simply that his own child should continue to live on the 
estate, that possibly his own gandson might be his representative. 

“ If the lad were the future King of England, it ’ud be just the 
same. Rector,” were his parting words. “Th’ land’s been the 
Wares’ since it’s beentli’ land it is. It’s got their fatness in it. We 
never spared our money when the good o’ the land was at stake. 
Many’s the acre that has lain fallow when we’d ha’ given someUiing 
to have the money’s worth of the crop. Look w-here you may it^s 


124 


A woman’s lote- story. 

got our marrow, basth’ land. And to think my gal’ had the chance 
o’ living and bearing sons upon it made up for the bad day when 1 
knew Madam had no more chance of 'givin’ it an heir. What a. 
precious old fool I was to go a-couutfng of my bantlings before I’d 
found a hen to sit upon the eggs! 1 feel as 1 did when 1 went and 
sailed a paper boat on a puddle when I was a lad, and another lad 
came up and swamped il.” 

Tbe Rector sympathized with the squire. Still he sympathized, 
with Mrs. Drew, and most of all with Lilith. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Lilith! No sooner had tlie squire disappeared from the draw- 
ing room than Mrs. Drew said to Willie, with a look of pain— 

“ You talk to my mother; I must go to Lilith.” 

And she went away to find her only child. Lilith seemed to her 
to-day all the token that her former marriage, her husband’s deser- 
tion, his death, and the existence of the woman he had eloped with 
and her beautiful children, was not some long troublous dream. 
Eor she felt like a girl in love with her first ideal. Already she had 
unconsciously selected this man who had imperiously seized upon 
her as her standpoint to judge others by. His tall fair figure was the 
figure, his keen bright blue eyes were the eyes, his manner was the 
right manner, his voice was an unequaled voice. As she went, 
with misgiving, to seek Lilith, to hear what Lilith thought, to try 
to modify her life according to her duty to Lilith, the real theme of 
her thoughts was Willie — how he could rise in the world with his 
will, with his eloquence— how he could benefit his fellow -creatures 
with his generous nature in active play— as it would, should be,, 
with herself to urge him on — she, who had served a bitter appren- 
ticeship to teach her the great art of wifehood! 

“Lilith!” she had called when she reached the first corridor. 
There was no reply. The old portraits— sullen men’s faces, sad, 
faded w^omen, with here and there an eager girlish beauty, or a sim- 
pering boy, or a bright-faced child — stared at her from the walls. 
Each of these had a life-story — each of these, except those who had 
laughed through a short span and had sunk, with a smile at Heaven, 
into some little grave, had yearned and sorrowed and desired, had 
stemmed through a punishment of long-drawn-out monotony, or had 
dared more and had died remorseful. Now she, another Ware, had 
her fate in her hand for the second time, and was about to stake it. 
She herself? “1 have not yet promised,” she told herself, dis- 
couraged as the dread of evils was aroused within her hy the pale 
stare of her ancestors’ painted eyes. “ Lilith shall decide. As 
Lilith decides, so will 1.” 

The morning sky flungsblue lights through the wide windows ou 
to her fair face as she went upward to the studio— to Lilith. She 
opened the door with fear and trembling. 

. “ Lilith!” she said; and her voice sounded harsh and grating in 
her ears, as if it had been some other voice. There were the canvases 
on the easels, the drooping cloths flung over them, the high chairs, 
the tables— a thrush fiuttered in his wicker- cage; but there was no. 
Lilith. 


■ y'-'. : ■ .- ■ .■ ■ • • \v/' ■•’ ■■ • V 

• 'A'H‘ ■'■ . r’. ■ "■ ;^-' ■■ ■. ' ■*■ ■ ' ' '_ ■■' ’ : 

A W03fA]Sr'S LOVE-STORY. 1^5 

She went away to Lilith’s room. She knocked, then heard her 
heart ao thud, tiiud against her chest as she stood waiting. It was 
a relief to hear her child’s voice say, “ Come in!'’ In the-.mictet of 
her new love, mentally' drunken as she was with its glamour, how 
dear, was that voice — how she loved the child of the man who had 
scorned and cast aside her young life! 

“ Ah!” said the tall girl significantly as she saw her mother enter. 
Lilith’s bedroom was the large chamber at the top of the house 
which had been her day-nurserj^ Even now, while one end was 
furnished, boudoir-like, with a new'-fashioned bed, wfith muslin 
draperies caught back with satin ribbons, the old fire-guard stood 
before the antique grate. The quaint old prints which had formed, 
ideas in Lilith’s baby-mind hung, brown and fiy-blown over the 
mantelpiece. The tables and chairs dated back to a time when 
Lilith’s existence was not thought of — when this mother who came 
seeking her here was a fair, soft, and lovely child, babbling as she 
staggered wfith plump outstretched hands from one chair, to the other. 
Lilith had been leaning her elbows on the cushioned window-seat, 
looking out upon the rookery in the swaying elm-tops, where the 
rooks, cawing, fluttered and flustered, and gazing down into the 
park upon the meeting of her grandfather and the Kector, drawing 
conclusions from their attitude and their gestures with the unerring 
instinct of interpretation which first stamps the painter born. 

When her mother opened the door and came in, with her fair 
face alive with varied emotion, the girl knew that her life, in regard 
to her mother and to Willie Macdonald, had come to a sudden pain- 
ful climax. 

There was a sadness in the girl’s face, at which her mother in- 
stinctively drew back; but Lilith srniled, and, going toward her,- 
drew her pretty fair head upon her shoulder tenderly, kissing the 
soft hair as if she were the mother and Mrs. Drew the child. 

“ Mother, you have made up your mind to be married again,” she 
said. ‘‘ Weil, no one will be astonished — 1 suppose no man has 
come to the house for an hour on the merest pretext, but the village 
gossips have married you to him,” she added bitterly. *‘l ought 
to have known.” 

” 1 will never marry any one, Lilith, my darling, if it will hurt — ' 
spoil— your life,” said Mis. Drew, turning deadly pale as she gazed 
wistfully into her daughter’s deep eyes. “And there must be no 
shadow of untruth between you and me,” she went on. ‘‘Do you 
not think that I realize how short life is— how little a casual— dis- 
appointment means? It all ends — under the turf or in the vaults. 
Mr. Macdonald fancies— No, 1 will not do him an injustice, Lilith 
— he loves me!” said Mrs. Drew, with determination, “Still he 
would soon get over it, and marry some one more suited to him in 
years. I have come to ask you what l^pill do— whether 1 shall 
marry him or no. You are not ta think ot him — a man soon for- 
gets — nor of me.” She drew a deep breath. “ A few days ago 1 
would have rushed away — anywhere, if I had been told what would 
happen. Lilith, j^ou must think only of yourself.” 

“ I have been thinking — only — of myself,” said Lilith gently, with 
a smile — but such a smile— the very ghost of every happy look which 
had ever crossed her face — a smile which her mother, who in her agi- 


126 


A womak’s lote-stort. 

tation had turned aside, did not see. ‘‘ And, when 1 think only of 
in.yself — mother — I recollect — that I am — my father’s child.” 

Mrs. Drew looked round. She was puzzled — nor could she in- 
terpret the expression on Lilith’s face or tbe curious ring in her voice 
as she said those last words. 

” Well, when I remember that my father injured you so deeply, 
should I not be an unnatural w^retch not to delight in anything that 
would make you happy? Willie will make you happy, mother. 
Oh, how I lemember all our long talks about you, his castles in the 
air about our traveling together— to Venice— to the East! I did not 
understand then— and I do not believe he did .either. 

You must not think it is a sudden freak,” said Mrs. Drew, 
slightly alarmed. 

But 'Lilith soothed her, and talked almost gayly of the future; 
then they went down-stairs arm in arm. Lilith was wound up; she 
was making a brave effort to forget herself, to control the heart- 
bitterness which urged her to cry out in her misery, to rush away 
and endure her passion of disappointment alone. 

” I cannot bear this much longer,” she told herself, feeling as if 
sdie would betray herself. It would be best to see and congratulate 
the man she had insensibly learnt to love, at once to accustom her- 
self to the idea of his being her mother’s husband now and for always. 
She hurried her mother to the drawing-room. The Rector was talk- 
ing to Madam Ware and to Willie. He was grave, puzzled. He 
iiad meant to argue with his nephew against the marriage. But 
how could he talk platitudes to the buoyant, triumphant young man 
who was leaning against the mantelpiece, making, with his joyous 
smiles and gayety a sensible moral sunshine in the silent chamber? 

“ Ah, these young folks, these jmung folks. Rector!” Madam 
Ware had said to him, smiling and shaking her head. There’s no 
making them see difhculties. They forget they’ll grow- old by-and- 
by.” Then she told her version of the morning’s engagement. 

” 1 wish I could congratulate you, Willie,” the Rector said, “ or 
rather congratulate Mrs. Drew. But ” — then he calmly brought 
forward his aiguments one by one. He had not finished speaking 
his unpleasant speech, to which Willie listened with barely sup- 
pressed impatience, when tlie door opened, and the mother and 
daughter entered. 

“ Notmie word to her,” Willie said in an undertone to his uncle; 
and there w^as a gleam in his eyes which warned the Rector to med- 
dle no more. 

Then Idlian went up to her old friend and pastor, and, taking his 
hand, said — 

“ Don’t scold — or rather wmit to scold till we are by ourselves.” 

“ Godpapa must scold me,” put in Lilith quaintly. “ It was my 
^oing. 1 told Willie a long-drawn-out tale about mother, a sort 
of ‘ Arabian Nights ’ story — only that it was all true; and, poor fel- 
low, he wants her all to himself. But you must not take her away 
altogether,” she said, turning to Willi^ “ We cannot any of us do 
without her.” 

She was so pale, her smile so foiced, that Willie, while he spoke 
tenderly toher and tried to jest about the days in London, thought. 

She is jealous of her mother’s affection for me.” But the Rector 


A wo:mak’s love-story. 127 

read Lilith aright; and presently, after taking leave, he thought of 
Lilith — only of Lilith. 

“ That— child though she is — would have been a lar more fitting- 
match,” he said to himself, his heart aching with pity for his 
strange, quaint godchild. 

“ it she had been prettier — and less gifted — she Vvould have had a 
happier life perhaps;” but then, finding himself murmuring against 
the decrees of Providence, he checked his reflections, and began to 
wonder how he could smooth or quicken the painful life that lay 
before the brave young girl. 

“ What will they say?” he thought, almost with a laugh, as he 
joined his wife and daughters. “ They thought it was the colonel.” 

As the Rector disclosed his news, Mary and Kate exchanged a smile. 
Each knew what the other meant. They had talked over the beau- 
tiful widow and her love-affairs, and had arrived at the conclusion 
that, as far as the}^ were concerned, she was quite welcome to their 
Cousin Willie. Both girls had tacitly agreed that, if the colonel 
should happen to cast his dark eyes in their direction, either w^ould 
consider it her duty to sacrifice herself. 

Mrs. Rawson was Mrs. Drew’s friend; so she contented herkelt 
with saying that there was no tool like an old fool, and that \ 
” woman of Lilian Drew’s age ought to know' better.” ^ 

“ Ah, my dear,” she went on, ” it generally is you soft-hearted 
people who are all for charity and don’t prate about justice who 
make fools of themselves! I feel convinced that, if i died, you 
would marry a ballet-girl or a cook:” 

‘‘Well, I might do worse,” said the Rector, teasingly. ‘‘The 
right couples never do seem to come togetlier, somehow.”' 

He sighed. Poor Lilith! 

Poor Liliih was then lying proneon the grass in a far-aw^ay corner 
of the park. The rooks flew cawing .over her head, the .'sunlight 
came and went as the clouds sped across'the sky before the breeze 
which swayed the boughs of the great elms and stirred the tall fronds 
of the bracken. Willie — and her mother— lovers— man and wife! 
It was hoirible — it w^as impossible! 

VVliai a life la/'before her— to hide her hate, of this unexpected 
union — lo seem as usual, to sympathize, to play chorus to their 
wetided joy! 

She felt as if there was no hope but in death; she thought of her 
art with a shudder. 

” 1 shall never paint again,” was the outcry of her young nature 
undergoing its first taste of the rack — ‘‘ never, never!”' 

Then came a curious recolfection, as she sat up and held her throb- 
bing head tightly between her hands. Might not her torture now 
be an outcome of her father’s sin? Had he not deserted her mother? 
Had he lived and died with his lawful wife, Lilian Drew? Lilith 
knew her mother w^ell enough ..to know that no sorrowing widow 
w'ould have surpassed her in consecration of herself to the memory 
of her dead, and that to be plunged into a new love such as this 
would have been impossible. 

” I owe this to him,” thought the girl solemnly. ‘‘ Still even I 
may be suffering less than others by liis agency.” She had guessed 
who those children were, although she keiit her surmises to herselL 


128 ' - A ..woman’s LOVE-STORT/:: ' ’ " ^ 

** How can a soul be happy that has brought about so much misery?*’ 
she thought, wondering with awe where that poor soul could be in 
the universe— whether it were suffering also through knowledge of 
the suffering it had caused. It calmed her to think of the dread 
secrets of the infinite; she felt no resentment against that dead father, 
only a great sorrowful pity. “Poor soul!” she thought. “May 
Ood forgive him, as my mother has forgiven him, and as 1 do!” 

* * * * ‘ -Sr * * 

The colonel was staying at one of the older-fashioned West-end 
-hotels. He had rushed across. France, had spent a few days in Italy, 
and feeling the hot sun and the new customs and foreign chatter uTi- 
taiing rather than soothing, had gone on into {Switzerland. Here 
the cold silence of the snow-tipped mountains, as well as the fir 
woods and the grassy meadows, recalled the Neilgherry Hills, the 
scene of his first short love-season. He wandered about the quiet 
valleys, and watched the goats bro\vsing on the heights far above 
him. Th< re, listening to the silvery tinkle of the bells in the still- 
ness, he thought of his old love and" of the new; he thought of his 
past barren bachelor-life and of the happy future he might spend 
yith his cousin Lilian as his wife. He w^ould be a father to Lilith 
,and a sou to the squire and Madam. Then, should he and Lilian 
have a son, the estate would really and truly pass on to the squire’s 
own heir. Surely Lilian would consent — it was such a desirable 
marriage for all parties concerned! 

Yet, even wdiile Colonel Ware persuaded himself that he would 
shortly be an engaged man, he had his misgivings. He w’ent in and 
out of the Swiss inns, and wandered so aimlessl}^ about that he w^as 
called “ the restless Englishman.” At last he started for home all 
in a hurry, and, directly he arrived in London, telegraphed his towm 
address to Mrs. Drew, adding — 

“I wait to hear from you.’-’ 

. This w^as early; London was asleep under a pale blue sky; scarcely 
a smoking chimney broke the morning clearness of the summer air. 
Colonel AVare telegraphed from a central oflice, where the red.-eyed 
night-clerk w’as just going off duty, and was surly at being detained; 
then he drove on to the hotel, where he waited for a telegram from 
Lilian, and revived an old and conquered habit of unlimited 
brandies-and-sodas and cigars. He had still the remnants of im- 
agination hanging about his somewhat ordinary brain, had the colonel ; 
for he fancied how^ he would open the yellow envelope and read, in 
that peculiarly careless and jaunt}^ handwriting affected by telegraph 
clerks — 

“ Come to us as soon as jmu can ” — or somewhat to tlmt effect. 

“ 1 hav^e a conviction that she will telegraph,” he thought; so he 
lounged about the hotel in a vague manner, ever}^ now and then gaz- 
ing out of the window and turning red when he caught sight of a 
telegraph -bo}^ as he did once or twice on that long summer day, 
during which he began to think the odor of soup and cutlets more 
disgusting than the odors of Eastern towns, and the street-cries and 
rattle and traffic of London the most wbaiying clamor he had as yet 
heard. 

But no telegram came. That night he scarcely slept. Toward 
morning he had argued himself into a resigned mood; therefore. 


A WOMAi^^S LOYE-STOKY. 129 

■when lie was awakened by the man with hot water and one letter, 
he opened the one letter with composure. 

“ 1 thought so/* he said to himself bitterly. “ My luck!” 

Lilian wrote — 

“ITou would not accept my answer, -dear cousin. How I wish 
3^ou would never have spoken to me about any second marriage! 
How am 1 to tell you what ha»- happened? Let me begin by re- 
Tuinding you of our conversation the evening before you left us. 
We were speaking of love; and it was while we were speaking, I 
thick, that i felt that 1 dearly loved some one, and that this some 
one was hot you. At that moment, if 1 could have been told who 
that some one was, or what would happen, 1 would have gone.awav 
— anywhere— 1 know that! But he came shortly after, and he has 
asked me to marry him, and I am pledged to do so. When 1 think 
baek upon it all, it seems sudden, rash, but irrevocable. ^ 1 dislike 
writing this to you, dear Geofirey, because 1 think you will despise 
me for my weakness ; but, remember, you are my nearest and repre- 
sentative relative after my f>arents, therefore I rely upon your coun- 
tenance of this engagement. If you , really intend to marry, ydu 
will find so many better, prettier, and younger wives than myseli^\ 
that 1 almost congratulate you on your escape. 1 am alwaj^s 
“ Your affectionate cousin, 

Lxlian Dke-w, 

“ P.S. — His name is William Macdonald.^* 

At first the colonel had a good honest fit of disgust; he was dis- 
gusted all round — with himself— as he saw his bronzed face and 
short gray hair reflected in the glass, he could have throttled him- 
self for what he called his “ idiotic folly ” — with Lilian, for being 
such a fool as to be in love “ at her age, with a grown-up daugh- 
ter ” — with Heathside Hall and the Eectory, for having cajoled him 
into a silly state — with France and Italy and Switzerland, for not 
having cajoled him out of it — in fact, with the whole world. 

Then came the inevitable reactionary mood. His feelings of the 
last few weeks were reversed; he began to think that bachelor-life 
in London was rather a good sort of thing in its way. He ordered 
his luncheon with epicurean care, then he went to his neglected 
club — the East Indian — and met one or two old cronies. He dined 
there, and afterward played whist, winning largely. 

No man, however rich, objects to victory at cards. The colonel 
pocketed his winnings with a pleasant sensation that, while cards 
remained, all joy in life was not yet over. And, as he strolled back 
to his hotel through the quiet streets, he said to himself, “ Lucky in 
:cards, unlucky in love,” and that perhaps it was better to cling to 
cards. \ou could always leave off playing cards; but, if you had 
a wife and children, you could not rid yourself of them, however 
much bother they might be. “1 don’t suppose they could make 
up a whist-table within a halt-dozen miles of the Hall,” was his 
concluding and consolatory reflection as he re-entered the hotel, and 
the night^porter told him that a gentleman had called who seemed 
very anxious to see him. 

“ The card is on ur table, sir,” he added. 

5 


130 


A woman’s LOYE STOEY. - ■ 

When the colonel reached his room, he found it, and read, “ Will- 
iam Macdonald, Prince’s Square, Bloomsbury.” 

On the back of the card was a penciled message — 

” My Deae Sir, — 1 am sorry not to find you. Will you make 
an appointment to see me? Yours, W. M.” 

The colonel retired to rest, declaring to himself that he would 
have nothing further to do with his Cousin Lilian, or her future 
husband, or her affairs. But duiing the night he dreamed of the 
old place. He dreamed of Madam Ware, then the sweet young 
mother with the baby Lilian in her arms, sitting on the tabouret in 
the quaint old drawing-room at the Hall; he dreamed of the sweet- 
smelling hay-loft, and of tumbling in the hay — of his childish 
escapades, chasing frightened rabbits, defying the turkey-cocks, 
charging among the sheep — all the jolly-boy- days at Hcathside; 
and, when he awoke, he told himself that there should be no more 
folly, and that he would be son and brother rather than nephew and 
cousin, but that all evanescent ” nonsense,” as he chose to call it, 
should be smothered there, then, once and for all. He wrote a kind 
little note to Lilian — 

“My dear Cousin,— Of course you can rely upon my ‘coun- 
tenance,’ such as it is. Let me know w^hen the wedding is to be. 1 
am too old to be your groom’s ‘ best man;’ but 1 shall hope to be 
present. Who are your trustees? 1 will be one with pleasure. . 

‘ ‘ Y ours always, Geoffrey W are. 

“IN.B.— Love to all.” 

The first time the colonel had surrendered was when he was a 
subaltern, and had to follow the lead of his superior officers. Then, 
as he gave up his sword, he had felt a choking in his throat. On 
the occasion of this second and more graceful surrender he felt a 
similar sensation. 

” All that is over,” he said, as he sealed his letter with his signet. 
“How about this fellow” — taking up Willie Macdonald’s card. 

” The affair is sudden. H’m — 1 think 1 ought to^look him up and 
see that Lilian is well done by. It is my duty.” 

So he took a hansom, and in a quarter of an hour was in Prince’s 
Square. The family were at luncheon, the butler informed him, as 
he showed him into the library. He had scarcely glanced round at 
the grim old room with the rows of ancient volumes and the one 
long window commanding a view of the narrow black back-gardens, 
when Widie Macdonald came in. He looked radiant, glowing. He 
came forward with a half -deferential, half-apologetic air, and warm- 
ly shook hands with the man whom Lilian had confessed to be a re- 
jected suitor. There was a slight awkwardness between them at 
first; but before ten minutes were over the colonel liad rallied from 
bis semi-vexation, and they began to talk of the approaching mar- 
Tiage. ff'his was to be in a short tim6> before the autumnal weather 
set in. 

” Lilian does not believe in showers of wet dead leaves upon a 
bride,” said Willie; ” and 1 am bound to acquiesce in so innocent 
a superstition. ” 


A woman’s love-story. 131 

Then he asked Colonel Ware if he would be his “ best noan ” and 
trustee to the marriage-settlement. 

The last, with all the pleasure in life,” said the colonel; “ but 
for ‘ best man ’--well, the bridemaids wouldn’t thank you t^ in- 
troduce an old fogy like myself. No; ask one of your younger 
friends.” 

” Somehow 1 have an objection to any but old friends at a family 
gathering,” said Macdonald. ” However, there is plenty of time to 
think of minor details.” Then he asked, the colonel to come up- 
stairs and be introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Law and to his mother; 
and the colonel, full of forebodings as to the future, iollowed him. 


CHAPTER XXll. 

“ Do you happen to remember meeting a young man on the P. 
and O. steamship ‘ Olympit:^’ of' the name of Druce, a few years 
back?” asked Willie Macdonald pt Colonel Ware, as they went up 
the staircase of the house in Prince’s Square, past the old windoW- 
seat with the blue cushions. ” If you do not” — for the colonel^ 
after searching his memory, shook his head — ” he remembers you; 
for he said, ‘ B}" Jove, if it isn’t Ware!’ when you got out of the 
hansom, while we were at luncheon.” 

” Druce, Druce?” repeated the colonel. He fancied that he re- 
membered the name. 

” A young painter — lives in Paris. Seems to have a name for 
tropical landscapes. They are certainly very fine, if a little wild in 
color,” said Willie. ”1 showed him a sketch of Lilith’s, and he 
thought great things of it. Ah, there he is!” 

The drawing-room door opened, and Mrs. Law came out, followed 
by a tall young man. He was neither fair nor dark. His skin was 
lanned, his eyes were a dark hazel, and, when he tossed aside a 
thick crop of straight hair of a brownish neutral tint, they gleamed 
or shone in the light. As he saw Willie and the colonel, he drew 
back; but Geoffrey Ware recognized him as a young fellow-traveler 
who had greatly interested him on his journey outward to India some 
years back. 

‘‘ Y'ou were but a lad then,” said he to Druce, after he had spoken 
to Mrs. Law, ” but an enthusiastic lad. You were a painter.even in 
those days.- Ah, we must meet again, and talk over old times!” 

There was a half shyness, half sentimentality about this young 
artist which sometimes clings to the disappointed. He told Colonel 
Ware, as they stood talking on the staircase, how it was he did not 
live in England. Every one had seemed to discourage his natural 
views of color. He had displeased masters, critics, and students in 
the legitimate or accepted schools. That he bad failed in getting 
his pictures into any of the exhibitions went without saying. 

” But from the moment 1 set toot on foreign soil everything was 
changed,” he said, in a voice which was slightly attected by foreign 
pronunciation. He had found a painter in Antwerp to give him 
encouragement. Having means of his own — his father had made 
a comfortable fortune in India, and had been an old friend of Mr. 
Law’s — he went to Munich, to Dlisseldorf, and other art-centers. 


■V 


132 A woman’s love-story. ''' 

“ And this year his great Nile picture has a conspicuous place in 
the Paris Salon,” said Willie. 

Then an appointment was made for the colonel to visit Druce’s 
house and to see some paintings he had with him, and they parted. 

Here was the old drawing-room, with the great family portraits,* 
the slim gilt furnituie, the faded tapestry. Mr. Law, pale and 
white-haired, sat in his corner near his table of Indian curiosities. 
Mrs. Macdonald was in a low chair near him. The colonel, as he 
glanced round, thought these surroundings scarcely conducive, to 
sentiment. When he saw Macdonald to-day — the ordinary fair 
Englishman-— he did wonder at Lilian Drew’s “ infatuation.” He 
could have understood her falling in love witii a Byronic personage, 
or even with a young man like “ that young Druce, for example.” 
But he failed to detect the charms of his rival. 

Old Mr. Law first mistook the colonel for the squire, then for 
some other gentleman. HisTnemory was beginning to fail, his eyes 
to dim. He had been very ill, and was kept from conversational 
blunders when Mrs. Law, more tyrmnical than ever, was in the 
room. But, when she was out of his piesence, he would grow 
jarisk and make up for lost time. 

Now he did so with a vengeance. After he had shaken the coloners 
hand for a whole minute, and had asked after numerous per- 
sonages in India, many of whom the colonel had never even heard 
of, or who had been dead and buried for years, he suddenly in- 
quired about Lilith. 

“Ah, my poor dear little girl with the black eyes!” he said, 
shaking his head. How is she? She used to be good to me, poor 
thing!” Then he went on in a loud whisper — “Fond of Willie 
there — never apart, those two weren’t. 1 never was so surprised in 
my life—” 

The colonel reddened; but fortunately Mrs. Law, who was speak- 
ing to Macdonald at the other end of the room, came up and said 
sharply— 

“ What’s that you’re whispering about? You must not pay the 
slightest attention to anything Mr. Law says. Colonel Ware. No 
sooner is my back turned than he begins talking nonsense.” 

“ 1 was not talking nonsense, my dear — ” 

“ If 3mu will talk immediately after your luncheon, the blinds 
shall be drawn down, and we shall leave you alone to take a nap,” 
said Mrs. Law determinedly; upon which the old gentleman was 
silent, and only blew his nose in mule expostulation, and blinked 
wistfiill}^ at the colonel until he took his leave 

This the colonel did soon. For Mr. Law’s remark had impressed 
him uncomfortably. Lilith was a mere child; but she had grown 
lip rapidly, and looked and behaved as an older girl. What if she 
had really “fallen in love,” as girls call it, with the young man 
who was shortly to become her step-father? 

“1 consider it highly probable,” the colonel assured himselL 
“ And, it so, 1 should consider it my bounden duty to talk to Lilian 
upon the subject. It would have b^en a far more fitting match, 
that of Lilith and Macdonald. But the idea of the mother and 
daughter loving one man is revolting.” 

He would find it out on the day when Macdonald and he visited 


A WOJfAX’S LOTE- STORY. 


133 


Druce’s studio. Even then there would be lime. He, for himself, 
did not believe in the broken hearts of widows on the wrong side of 
thirty, and would have no scruple in the matter. 

The next few days he amused himself well enough. His luck at 
cards continued. His partners smiled, and tEe old gentlemen at the 
club who divided their time between dining, dozing, and the card- 
tables were not eager to be his adversaries, although they liked 
watching the play and seeing their friends count out their gold 
pieces on the green cloth. The colonel did not either think of Lilian 
by day or dream of her by night. 

Then came Willie one morning to fetch him to see young Druce’s 
pictures. The bridegroom-to-be had been very busy choosing furni- 
ture for a pretty little villa- cottage on the river-bank a few miles out 
of town, the home he intended to make over to his wife as his mar- 
liage-gift. Some feeling that, by insisting upon Mrs. Drew's ac-- 
ceptance of him when she might have married a husband who not 
only was richer, but who would be the possessor of Ileathside, he 
had wronged her in a worldly sense, had led him to wish the colonel 
to see this little estate. So, when Colonel Ware remarked that^it 
was hardly necessary to have brought a carriage with so fine a paiy 
of horses to drive to Fulham and back, Macdonald said — 

“ Ah, but 1 wanted to drive you on to see Lilian’s little villa I” — 
and he explained his wedding-present, which was to be a surprise. 

The colonel was scarcely in a humor for “ loves and doves,” as 
he inwardly called Macdonald's talk, still he felt that as Lilian's 
trustee— she had gratefully accepted him as such— he was bound to 
see what her future husband was doing for her. 

“ Of course I must go,” he said dryly, ” although 1 had an appoint- 
ment with General Blackett at the club at one.'’ Then he looked 
at his watch. 

“Well, we need not stay long at Druce’s,” returned Macdonald; 
“ and his studio is hardly a stone's throw out of our road.” 

Then they talked over the settlements and other business, till the 
coachman turned sharply out of the main road into a lane where 
there was no stone pavement, where trees flanked the walls of 
square gardens, and the houses, few and far between, were of all 
sizes and shapes.- They stopped before,, a square red-brick house 
half hidden by trees. This belonged to Druce’s mother. 

She met them at the door, a pretty little old lady in black satin, 
with a high cap and a huge muslin collar, and with a deep courtesy 
informing them that they were welcome, led. them into a drawing- 
room still quainter in its bygone fashion than either Heathside Hall 
or the house in Prince’s Square. For Mrs. Druce was a French- 
woman by birth, and as Mademoiselle d’Arigny, the daughter of a 
Koyalist emigrant, had preserved her affection for the taste and 
style of the time of the Louis monarchy. She had recovered Some 
of the furniture and china and family portraits, most of which had 
been destroyed by the Republicans fvhen they sacked the Chateau 
d’Arigny; and the gilded chairs and Venetian mirrors and crystal 
chandeliers, the soft, if faded, carpets and embroidered satin cur- 
tains, which were so carefully arranged in the curiously-shaped 
room that seemed all corners and embrasures, brought back past 
days, and therefore made- the venerable lady happy. Her son^ 


134 


A woman’s love-story. 


Louis Michel, was the one child of her middle age. She spoke of 
him, as she spread her skirts, with dignity, slight little being though 
she was ; and she entertained the colonel and Willie Macdonald seated 
on a sort of dais under the stained-glass window which completel}^ 
hid tne lane from the occupants of the drawing room. 

“ My countree has applauded son,’' she said, as she folded 
her withered delicate hands upon her lap: “ therefore 1 am satisfied, 
content. Not that I not like your England! It is the country of 
my deceased husband. It gave my family a retreat from the vvicked 
men of France who hated the Bourbons. But the wicked men are 
but the naughty children of our dear France, and they only make 
her good children love her all the more.” 

Then Diuce, the Anglo-Frenchman, came in. He wore his white 
painting-suit. He looked bored, or sad. Still he welcomed his 
guests with a sort of careless grace. 

“ 1 have been putting my pictures in the best light,” he said, 

and my mother has been preparing breakfast; so 1 hope you will 
stay.” 

He looked as if he did not personally care whether they stayed or 
not— except for his mother’s sake. He. had been so little with her 
these past years, and he was her one darling. Even his friends— 
ah, even his acquaintances — were delightful to her because they 
were his! The colonel noticed his glance, half tender, half respect- 
ful, toward his mother, as he said, ” 1 hope you will stay;” and 
he felt an instant liking for Druce spring out of the old passing fancy 
that his young fellow-traveler had inspired him with years before. 

” 1 want to see your pictures very much,” he said, rising; and he 
spoke with a warmth which w^as absolutely honest. 

Then the two men, somehow infected by the atmosphere of respect 
that surrounded the queenly old Jady, bowed low— a homage she 
acknowledged with a dignified little bend'of her head — andfoilov/ed 
the young painter from the room. 

The staircase looked un-English with its padded velvet balustrade 
and the fantastic flower-pots of hanging creepers on gilt brackets 
against the wmlls. Then they came to a landing where there was a 
prie-Dieu chair placed beneath a huge crucifix, and on either side the 
portraits of Mr. Druce, senior, and his French Royalist wife, painted 
by their son. 

” Juvenile failures,” he said, with a wave of the hand. 

A few more stairs were mounted, and they were in the studio — 
two attics thrown into one — a fair view of the river winding among 
the pleasant suburbs from the windows in the sloping root, the 
whitewashed wails bung wuth old shields, spears, dinted bits of 
armor, and unframed sketches, a skeleton hanging in the corner by 
the side of a lay figure. 

“ 1 give them flesh and blood,” said Druce, with a smile, as he 
drew a curtain that hid the ugly pair. ‘‘ Here is my latest embodi- 
ment of our friends yonder.” 

He took a canvas from its leaning-place against the wall. It was 
the picture of a girl feeding doves; she sat under an olive-tree, with 
one white-feaihered creature clasped to her breast. She was a fair 
girl in peasant dress, her dowmcast face shaded by a curious head- 
dress. There was an effect of purity about the figure, with doves 


135 


A W03IAiq-’S L0Y£-ST0IIY. 

busily feeding at her feet, with one bolder pigeon perched on her 
knee to peck the grams from her apronful, with another just alight- 
ed upon her shoulder, his wiags still unfolded, while his neck was 
craned as if for his bright ej^es to peer up into her face. 

The colonel and Willie Macdonald admired this, Druce’s picture 
for a French exhibition; then the painter said abruptly — 

“ Now 1 will show you what 1 paint for your acaaemy. If they 
reject me, 1 do not care. They rejected me before and will no doubt 
do so again; so 1 give them a picture that 1 like — my sky, my fa- 
vorita trees, my favorite subject, my ideas of beauty. If they reject 
—very welL But, if they accept, then— do you not see, Monsieur ie 
Colonel?— they accept me, my views, my ideas, my coloring— then 1 
triumph!” 

He turned the canvas on the large easel in the center of the room. 
The picture made two distinct impressions, one upon Macdonald,, 
the other upon the colonel. 

Willie Macdonald saw a dark young man in the tight Italian dress 
of the middle ages, with the short cloak, seated carelessly upon a 
stone bench under laurel-trees.^ The trees were greenly black 
against a vivid sunset, and the dark rapt face shone in the refraction 
of this intensely golden light. 

The colonel noticed the face first, with a sensation of recognition. 
Most people know the feeling—” 1 have seen that face before.” 
This was au oval dark face, with eyes almost thrilling in their black 
intensity under straight-marked brows, the nose slender, but pro- 
nounced, the corners of the curved lips drooping — scarcely with fear 
— rather with a passionate discontent or ^'earning. 

” It is more like a woman than a man,” said the colonel somewhat 
sharply, because he was annoyed that he could not at the moment 
remember whose face so strongly resembled this. “ May I ask who 
was your model ? I believe you artists generally paint from models. ” 

” i have seen some one like that,” said Macdonald musingly. The 
more he gazed at the expressive face the stronger grew his recog- 
nition. 

The young man smiled. Then, in his careless way, he said There 
was no secret about the impersonation. The picture would be called 
“Day-dreams” — a young Italian poet dreaming poetry, with some 
beaulitul heroine as its theme. But the face was a woman’s. Then 
he related how, one autumn day in Rome, he had seen the beautiful 

young Marchessa di sealed on a stone seat near a fountain, 

with her little brown hambino and its nurse. 

” The group was so delightful that 1 hid myself behind a tree and 
sketched it,’ he said. “ The nurse you have seen— that girl feeding 
the doves. The bambino — well, all bambini are much alike. The 
marcliesa I have painted here.” 

He took the canvas and put it aside. Then he showed them 
sketches ot the far East— temples, palm-trees, arid sands," with 
camels as frontispiece; then jangles, with the magnificent overgrowth 
of plants in the moist red haze. 

Then there came a sharp knock, and a withered little old French- 
man, a mummy-like mannikin, announced, in very French- English, 
that breakfast w^as served to the gentlemen, and Druce led the way 
downstairs. 


136 


A womah’s love-story. 

The dining-room was small, and sparely furnished, as French 
dining-rooms are. There was a pleasant view of green shady gar- 
den, with straight-cut box-trees and yews, with statues in green al- 
coves and a fountain playing in the center of a small grass-plot. 

Driice sat opposite to his mother at the circular table, and his 
guests were on either side. The breakfast and its appointments were 
'in keeping with the old French manner of the house and its propri- 
etress. Cutlets were served with puree of potatoes in delicate china. 
Then followed fowl and salad and a chocolate cream; while the only 
liquids were claret, water. Burgundy, cafe now, and Chartreuse. 
The little old butler joined in the conversation now and then re- 
spectfull}^ but as one of the family, and it seemed a matter of 
course to the mother and son. After the meal. Colonel Ware and 
Willie took leave, the old lady accompanying them to the door and 
standing there while her son, bareheaded, followed them to the car- 
riage. 

" ‘ It is like a chapter out of some old French romance — that house, ’’ 
said Macdonald. 

The young man is a genius — thpre is little doubt of that,’* re- 
marked the colonel. He was about to add something about Lilith, 
when he stopped short; he had^suddenly recognized that the face of 
the Italian poet had reminded him of Lilith. 

llis thoughts came so quick and fast that he hardly kneW what 
he thought. But, as they drove rapidly through the suburbs toward 
the village on the river where Ihe villa was, he began to arrange his 
impressions. Supposing that Lilith had been attached to Macdonald 
before he proposed to her mother, it might be only a childish affair. 
The colonel was no match-maker. But it struck him as curious that 
young Bruce’s ideal of beauty should remind him of Lilith, who 
was considered ugly. 

“ Do you consider Lilith ugly?” he suddenly asked Macdonald, 
who wondered at such an odd question. His thoughts were occu- 
pied with chairs and tables and carpets and curtains. 

“Ugly?” said Willie. “Well, you see, we who know her are 
more occupied with her cleverness and odd ways. 1 imagine she 
must have been an ugly child. But she is softening, and some per- 
sons might admire that Eastern coloring and outline.” 

“Evidently our friend Mr. Druce does,” remarked the colonel 
dryly, watching Macdonald. If the man had ever had any idea of 
caring for the girl more than as her mother’s daughter, he thought, 
he would show it now. 

“ Druce?” Willie looked puzzled. 

“ Did you not notice that the face and head of his ideal Italian 
beauty might have been painted from Lilith?” asked the colonel. 
“Of course he has added a masculinity,^ squareness, and angles in- 
stead of roundness and curves. But it is Lilith all the same.” 

“ I do not see the likeness,” said Willie, still feeling puzzled, and 
slightly resenting the colonel’s bringing Lilith into the conversation. 
Some hints dropped by his aunt, Mrs. Taw, since his engagement to 
Mrs. Drew, had made him uncomfortable when he thought of his 
great friendship for the young girl so soon to be his step-daughter. 
But he had dismissed his misgivings with the assertion to himself 


A AVOMAN'S LOVE-STOKY. 


137 


that Lilith was so completely a child that she could not have cared 
for him except as a girl cares for an elder brother or a youthful uncle. 

“ There is such a strange coincidence in this young man's tastes 
being similar to that child’s, and his thinking her peculiar style 
beautiful, that 1 feel I should like them to know each other,’' ob- 
served the colonel. “ I dare say 1 am like an old woman; but old 
bachelors sometimes get into the way of meddling with young peo- 
ple’s affairs.’' 

‘ “ But Lilith is a child; her mother looks like a girl,” said Mac- 
donald, reddening. 

” She is quite old enough to be unhappy, living in the same house . 
with you two,” rejoined the colonel; “so 1 think it will be a good 
thing to give her something to think of.” 

“ She has tier art,” said Macdonald. 

“ So has Druce,” returned the colonel. “ All 1 want is for him 
to be asked to the wedding.” 

“ Most certainly,” said Willie, a little ceremoniously. Then they 
drove on. 

The colonel approved of the miniature house, with its large gar- 
den, good stables, and poultry-yard. 

“ But there is no room for Lilith,” he said, smiling. “ She must 
stay at the Hall — until she marries.” 

Willie explained, as they drove back to town, that at any moment 
his uncle might die, and he would come into his property. 

“ Dead men’s shoes!” said the colonel bluntly. 

These two meant to be cordial: but somehow they irritated each 
other. However, it was arranged that Druce was to be invited to 
Heathside. The colonel asked the young m*an if he would go. At 
first Druce wrote four pages of excuses; but he ended by giving 
way, his one stipulation being that no one was to be told he was a 
painter. 


CHAPTER XXlll. 

It was the end of August. A few days before the wedding Mrs. 
Macdonald was to visit Heathside Hall. Mrs. Law had of course 
been urged to “ assist” at her nephew’s marriage, but made Mr. 
Law’s weakness her excuse for not seeing William “ throw himself 
away upon a middle aged widow with a grown-up daughter,” as 
she told her particular friends. 

The bridegroom was to meet Colonel Ware and young Druce at 
the railway-station, and the three were to journey to Heathside to- 
gether. It was a bright breezy day; the colonel, who was ever to 
the fore where actual arrangements were concerned, had secured a 
first class compartment. Willie was in gay spirUs. The colonel had 
made up his mind not to be that undesirable thing, a “ wet blanket,” 
and in determining to be jolly had becocie so. As the train steamed 
through the beautiful country, and his companions talked cleverly 
and amusingly, “ Michael ” Druce, as he preferred to be called, felt 
suddenl 3 ^ glad that he was with them, glad that he w^as to make one 
of a hearty English home* festival. 

He had expatriated himself. He had felt the fascination of. 
Southern scenery, of the Southern temperament —that curious mix- 


138 


A woman’s love story. 

ture of liveliness and melancholy. He had taken part in Norlhern 
festivals, had clinked glasses with reckless Heidelberg students, and 
had waltzed with pretty peasant-women at I he village fairs. He had 
dreamed mediaeval dreams in quiet monasteries, where he had made 
friends with the monies and had left many a fresco or panel to attest 
his passing visit. Pie had wandered about Rome, had grown mor- 
bidly disgusted with his era among the desecrated remains of beau- 
tiful Athens, and had spent one whole week in the desert spoiling 
canvas after canvas in -wain attempts to reproduce the mystic, un- 
fathomable expression of the great stone face of the Sphinx. In these 
different spots of earth he had* thought strange thoughts, and had 
felt still stranger emotions. These had left him restless, unsettled, 
with but two unchangeable feelings — his love for his mother, in 
which his French blood showed itself, and his resentment against 
England, or rather the painters of England, because they would not 
own him as one of themselves. 

This repudiation of him had been the bitterest pill he had had to 
swallow. After all, England was his fatherland. The passionate, 
eager young artist had felt as desperate when England was cold to 
his burning productions as if his dead father could have said to 
him, “ Go— you are none of mine.’' Strange that to-day, on this 
_unexpected journey to take part in the wedding of a man who was 
a comparative stranger to him, he should almost have forgotten that 
his country and he were not at one, that, instead of decrying the 
simple garden-like sweetness of the rural counties he was passing 
through, he felt a new recognition of their peaceful beauty. He 
xeveled in the nobj^e stature of the great trees dropping their golden 
leaves on the sward or- the golden stubble, in the warm tints of the 
woods, in the winding streams and the quaintly- shaped pollards, in 
the rustic homesteads with their fertile fruit and flower gardens, with 
their droves of sleek cattle and atmospnere of plenty and of content, 
and in the villages, v/ith their little churches and green graveyards — 

God’s acres.” 

“ This man has a corner in his heart left for home, after all,” 
said Willie, after Druce had remarked with unconcealed warmth 
upon the swiftly-passing landscape. “That is where we English 
ean never quite settle down abroad, colonel, unless we carry our 
home with us, or pretend that we do by makiug a stage for our- 
selves in their Jiouses, and acting being English upon it. But till 
Druce has seen our squire and madam and the Hall 1 shall not ask 
his opinion of England.” 

“ Nor till he has seen the Rectory and your cousins and the dairy,” 
added the colonel. Then he sounded the praises of the Rector, his 
family, his house, garden, orchard, farm, et-cceieray till Willie 
smiled, and he, seeing the smile, reddened to the roots of his short 
gray hair. 

Enthusiasm is infectious,” he said, hiding a certain confusion 
and annoyance at Macdonald’s quiet little smile by busying himself 
with a cigar. “ But why should we not allow ourselves to be en- 
thusiastic sometimes?” ^ 

“ Ah, ‘ life must not be all painted in sepia and Indian ink if we 
want to be happj^’ as Lililth once said to me, poor child!” said 
IVillie; and he sighed— he did not know why. He was happy 


139 


A woman’s loye-story. 

enough. All was going smoothly. He was traveling to make the 
woman he passionately loved his wife. Yet with the sudden recol- 
lection ot Lilith’s little saying came the remembrance ot her curious 
face, with its wistful look, and he had unconsciously added— “ poor 
child!” 

Somehow the name ” Lilith” was a check to the conversation. 
The colonel coughed, then smoked in silence; and' Willie took up a 
newspaper. Druce looked curiously at them. Who was this ” poor 
child ” who was named after Adam’s first wife? He had little time 
for pondering. The train pulled up — it was the station before 
Heathside; and during the next few minutes his traveling compan- 
ions were busily changing caps for hats, bundling papers into the 
pockets of their dust-coats, and tumbling their paraphernalia upon 
the seat nearest the door. Then there was a j(irk;. Willie let down 
the window; a smart groom came hurrying up; and, after passing 
through tire station, where the officials saluted the bridegroom with 
a new sympathetic deference, Druce, following the colonel, saw a 
four-in-iiand brake, with a ruddy gentleman on the box reins in 
hand. 

” Hulloa! All right?” The squire was in a capital humor. 
** Come along!” 

The colonel introduced his young friend. 

“ What? A cross between a frog and a bull?” he said, with a 
compassionate look at Druce, who was pointing out his luggage to 
the servants. ‘‘Poor fellow! There ain’t no good in such cross- 
breeds however. Here, Mister— IVJister — wedding-guest, come up 
here, and you and I’ll have a talk going home. All right behind?” 
— looking back to see if Macdonald and the colonel were in. 

“All right,” said the colonel. So they were off, tooling along 
the road— the beautiful road with the arching trees and their pict-' 
uresque shadows lying upon the grassy hedgerows. 

The next time, thought Macdonald— the next time he would pass 
along this road Lilian— his wife — would be with him. It was a 
thrilling thought ; there was even a solemnity about it. But no tear 
crossed bis mind— no thought of a shadowy hand that might come 
between bis and bers and sunder their wedded clasp — no misgiving 
even of w^hat was to come, what harvest of bitterness wslh in store. 

Meanwhile, as the team of brown horses dashed gallantly along, 
snorting and arching their necks as they roup ded corners or sped 
straight onward homeward, Druce felt as if in a soothing dream. 
The squire reminded him ot the men in the hunting-pictures he had 
come upon in old village inns; or he miglU be one of Fielding or 
Smollett’s country gentlemen in the fiesh. Druce liked him at once 
— indeed he was fascinated by the good-humored old face with the 
jolly double chin and bristling wdiite eyebrows, by the unciion of 
Squire Ware’s bass voice, whose tones were oily enough wiieii he 
was not ‘‘ in his tantrums.” And he listened to his talk, although 
the squire sympathized wilh him for bemg a hybrid, andcomfort- 
ingl}?- assured him that he would “get ov^er it in time — the uull 
would swallow up the frog,” with other encouraging, but somew hat 
mystifying speeches. Michael Druce w^as in one -of his dreamy 
meditative moods. He was hardlv nervously alert enough to seize 
the exact meaning of words or gestures; he was passively receiving 


140 A woman’s love-story. 

impressions. For many a long day he would remember Heathside 
park as he saw it that morning — the masses of feathery green, the 
bracken on the mossy turt, the fragrant silence under the solemn 
spreading beeches, the golden sunlight searching through the wide 
boughs and quivering as it played in broken bright patches upon 
trunk, bough, white road, or grass; then the massive gray walls of 
the Hall appearing suddenly as the horses trotted round a curve in 
the road. 

“ You have a typical English mansion,'’ he remarked to the squire, 
A sound old house, sir— stone — none of your gimcracks, your 
foreign lath-and-plaster, ” said the squire, gratified, as Madam Ware 
appeared at the open door and smiled upon her guests — “ not a stone 
that isn’t what it looks. No nonsense about us anywhere. A good 
hand-shake, and a slice o’ beef and a mug o’ home-brewed. And 
madam there, as good and kind a soul as ever breathed, barring her 
deafness; but shell bear you safe enough, if you speak slow and 
don’t bawl at her.” 

Druce had alighted from his high perch, assuring the squire that 
he would remember his instructions. 

” Now mind you don’tholloa!” called out the squire, as the young 
painter found Jiimself mounting the broad flight of steps and fol- 
lowing Macdonald into the cool darkened hall. 

He was introduced to the gray-haired quiet little lady, who told 
him, in the hushed, cautious tones of the deaf, that she was pleased 
to see him, holding his hard thin hand between her soft while palms 
as she turned to Willie Macdonald and said — 

” Lilian wanted to have tea in tbe parlor; so we are sitting there. 
Y^our friend must forget he is a stranger, Gebfiiey, and take us as 
he finds us.” 

“lam sure he will,” answered the colonel. 

He looked a little stern; he could not forget that he was arriving 
here as the rejected suitor of the ,bride, although he was her cousin, 
the future head of the Ware family, and her tiustee. As the three 
men followed their hostess along the narrow passage leading to the 
“ parlor,” he felt he would be glad when this first meeting in these 
changed circumstances was over. 

Madam Ware opened the door, and Michael Druce saw the long, 
low, old-fashioned room with the great cupboards and oaken flooring, 
the simple wooden chairs, the wide bay-window, all green with the 
view of the orchard and park be;^ond; he heard soft laughter and 
sweet voices; he saw two figures standing together close to him, one 
a fair woman in white, with a bunch of roses at her breast, and golden 
hair and*soft blue eyes, who looked so happj^ as she welcomed him 
with a few kind words that he suddenly felt alone and dull and 
stupid, in comparison with her, as she walked awa}^ into the corner 
and stood with her back to him, talking to Macdonald. 

His painter’s eyes were attracted h} the, attitude of those two. 
Each line, each curve, each fleeting facial expression meant content, 
hope, happiness. He sighed as he turned away, and saw a pale girl 
with great passionate dark eyes, dressed in black, plucking impa- 
tiently at the necklace of amber beads around her long brown throat. 
She startled him — this tall creature with the mass of curling black 
hair. Surely he had seen her somewhere before? As he was won- 


A -v^^omak’s loye-story. *141 

tiering and puzzling himself, watching her as she stood against the 
background of the great sola and the green outside the open window, 
the colonel bending over her, Lilith was fighting with a new sharp 
pain. The bridegroom was here. The wedding was inevitable. 
Had she doubted it? Had she hidden the fact that William Macdon- 
ald was all but her step-father already from her mind? If she had 
— during these quiet weeks that her mother had been her constant 
oompanion, never tenderer, sweeter, or more solicitous for her child’s 
happiness-poor Lilith had not known it till now. She did not look 
at Willie and her mother, she did not hear their low-voiced happy 
talk— she felt it; and those minutes were hard to bear in quiet. 

“ What are you talking about?” she said to the colonel impatient- 
ly. “ There is such a noise 1 cannot hear.” And she plucked at 
her beads, and flashed an angry look at a meek man-servant who 
was arranging the tea-tray on a small table at the window. 

‘‘ 1 was telling you about my j’oung friend over there,” answered 
the colonel gently. If a girl or woman had spoken to him like that 
on an ordinary occasion, he would have felt wroth; but, interpreting 
Lilith’s iriifation aright, he not only felt compassionate, but had a 
sense of satisfaction in that his surmises about Lilith’s liking for 
Willie were correct. “Hej[s a pleasant fellow; clever too — 
traveled.” 

” What does he want with us then?” asked Lilith, wrestling with 
an inward rage. “We are neither pleasant nor clever, nor are we 
traveled—” 

“‘Druce, allow me to introduce my Cousin Lilith to you,” said 
the colonel peremptorily, beckoning Druce. “She looks a great 
deal more ferocious than she is, 1 assure you.” 

Lilith flushed up as she and the young man bowed gravely to each 
other. But she did not resent her cousin’s speech, which had some- 
what roughly reminded her not to betray her emotion, whatever it. 
might be. 

So she occupied herself with pouring out tea, while the rest talked 
— all except Druce, who stood aside, hardly taking part — more as a 
spectator. 

This was a new scene to him — the English old lady, so sedate and 
dignified, yet so different from his stately little French mother; the 
young matron, Lilian, fair, radiant, full of grace, so charming, so 
lively, yet without a loud tone in her happy voice or a tinge of ex- 
citement in her gentle gayety ; the English lover, with an air of pro- 
prietorship in his future wife, this beautiful golden-haired widow ; 
the military cousin, British in every look and gesture; the endless 
cups of tea dispensed in the old Chelsea cups by that black -haired, 
black-browed, black-eyed girl, the one incongruous figure in the 
l)icture. 

What was she? How did she come to be one of these? The 
colonel had not talked about Lilith to Druce just because he had in- 
tended the two to be friends. So Michael had somehow connected 
his fleeting ideas of her with the pretty bride, tie looked from 
Lilian to Lilith, puzzling; it did not occur to him that they were 
mother and daughter. 

The colonel was parting his hair very carefully before the glass. 


143 A woman’s loye-stoky. 

later on, when there was a tap at his door, and, in answer to his 
“ Come in,” Michael Druce entered in evening-dress. 

“1 suppose 1 am right?” he asked, glancing at his toilet. “ It 
is your English fashion.” 

The colonel nodded, and went on with his parting, while Druce 
moved restlessly about the room, looking at an old Dutch picture 
over the mantel piece, or out of window into the park. 

“ Who is the young lady in the black dress with the amber beads?” 
he asked the colonel presently. “ 1 — fancied — 1 — had seen her be- 
fore; and yet — 1 have thought and thought and cannot remember 
w^here.” 

The colonel, inwardly amused, gravely explained Lilith’s identity, 

“ She is the daughter — of that young — lady.” 

Druce Was astonished. 

“ Then— her age? She looks a grown-up young lady, does 
mademoiselle.” 

“Ah, we will not enter into the mystery of ladies’ ages!” said 
the colonel. Then he related Lilith’s painting experiences; Druce 
listened attentively. 

“ There is no doubt she is a painter,” he said decidedly. “ 1 must 
persuade her to talk to me.” 

“ But 1 thought you did not wish any one here to know you were 
an artist?” questioned the colonel mischievously. 

The young man, who looked what Colonel Ware inwardly called 
“much less heathenish in evening-dress,” explained that on his 
reception into the family circle he had felt embarrassed, de trop. 

“ Slie looked at me with those great black eyes of hers as if to 
say, ‘ A'Ylio are you? What do you want here?’ ” he explained. 
“ Perhaps, if she knows who I am, she.will not think so much of 
an intruder.” 

“ Ah, your artist’s imagination is at work!” said the colonel. 
“ However, tell Lilith you are a painter, by all means; it was not I 
who advised you to appear ashamed of your profession. Oh, yes; 
that is actually what it amounts to!” he went on, seeing that Mi- 
chael was about to expostulate. “ If 1 went anywhere and called my- 
self Mr. Ware, it would seem like being ashamed of being a soldier. 
Hoist your colors boldly, and stick to ’em— that’s one of our En- 
glish niottoes; and, put into practice, it pays.” 

Then they went down-stairs to the big drawing-room. As they 
entered the great room where long sunset rays of red lay upon the 
Turkey carpet and the ancestral portraits looked gloomily out from 
the shadow, the colonel saw that Lilith was half hidden by one of 
the heavy satin window curtains. 

“ Wait a moment,” he said to Druce, who was about to join the 
group 9t the other end of the room. Then he went across to her. 

Lilith was gazing out into the garden; she was dressed in black 
and yellow, a dress made out of Indian silken stuffs that Mr. Law 
had given her one day when Mrs. Lavr had gone a short distance 
out of town to visit some old friends. The colonel said a few words 
in praise 6l her costume. 

“ All hough I must acknowledge that there is a suggestion of the 
wasp about it,” he adaed. “ However, The sting will be waiting, 
will it not?” 


A woman’s love-story. 143 

He asked her, with a tinge of seriousness, to be amiable to the 
Stranger guest. 

“ But 1 don’t know what to say to young men,” said Lilith im- 
patiently — “ especially ordinary young men.” 

“Do not look at poor Druce so disdainfully,” whispered the 
colonel, “ or, 1 assure you, you will be sorry. ” He paused a moment, 
then asked her if she remembered a picture of the Nile that hung in 
the back drawing-room at Prince’s Square. 

Lilith gave him a searching look with her wide black eyes; sbe 
wondered at this curious leap from subject to subject. 

“ is Mr. Law going to give it to mother as a wedding-present?” 
she asked. “ She liked the picture very much, 1 know.” 

“ Did you like it?” 

Once more Lilith gazed curiously at her cousin. 

“ What does it matter if I liked it or not?” she said. “ If mother 
is to have it in this new villa they are everlastingly writing and talk- 
ing about, 1 don’t suppose it will make much difference lo me — I 
sha’n’t be there; 1 shall not leave my grandmother, colonel — you 
may depend upon that.” 

“ That is not the question, ” rejoined the colonel. “ My ques- 
tion was, did you like that picture? ‘ Y’es,’ or ‘ no?’ ” 

Lilith hesitated a moment. 

“ If you so particularly want to know,” slie said, “ I can’t say 
either ‘ Yes ’ or ‘ No.’ The truth is that picture worried me — it had 
such a glorious atmosphere. If you went at any time, in any light, 
and stood before it, you almost felt the steamy fragrant heat, you 
reveled in the shade of the palms, you watched the hues of air and 
water as if they were real, instead of in a picture. Then you went 
upstairs and loathed your own daubs till j^ou longed to fling them 
down into the old garden-and make a bonfire of them.” 

“Oh, dear, no; 1 did not!” the colonel broke in. 

“ 1 said ‘ you ’ only figuratively,” said Lilith, who had been be- 
trayed into rhapsody, and subsided at once into the self-contained 
manner she had adopted of late. “ You will allow that it is vexa- 
tious lo be absolutely outdone in anything,” she added, in excuse. 

1 was always trying and tailing in what the painter of that oicture 
excelled in; 1 tried everything all round.” 

“You wanted him to show you how he did it, or them, or what- 
ever it is; 1 know nothing Of art-jargon,” said her cousin, who was 
getting thoroughly amused by the situation. “ Perhaps you would 
like to know him?” 

Lilith looked gravely, seriously at her cousin, as she sometimes 
looked at her grandfather when he joked after dinner and she did 
not quite appreciate his jokes. 

“ 1 don’t know what you mean,” she answered. However, she 
soon found out. 

Druce,” said the colonel— and the young man joined them— 
“explain all about that misty red picture of yours that hangs in 
Mr. Law’s back drawing-room to my Cousin Lilith here, will you?” 
—and he went off. 

Lilith looked aghast. Michael Druce felt awkward, ashamed. 
First they stared at each other; then they both said something- 
stopped short. 


144 A womak’s love-story. 

“ I beg your pardon,’’ said Lilitb, blushing. 

“No; you speak first, mademoiselle,” requested Druce, with s 
little bow. 

“ 1 thought the painter of that lived in Paris.” 

“Soldo.” 

“But you are an Englishman — at least, we thought so by what 
my Cousin Geoff rey said. ” 

“So lam.” 

“ 1 do not understand,” said Lilith, mystified. 

At that moment dinner was announced, and the elders were pair- 
ing off; Wiilie and Lilian were going from the room. 

“ Come along, you two young folks!” called out the squire; and 
Druce offered his arm to Lilith. 

“ It is very amusing,” thought the colonel, as he followed them, 
giving his arm to Madam Ware. “ They looked at each other like 
two tom-cats an hour ago.” Now, as they went down-stairs, their 
heads were bent ; they were in close converse. 

The awkwardness of the introduction once over, the two became 
friendly and at ease with each other. Druce enjoyed that little din- 
ner at Heathside Hall, before Macdonald’s wedding, better than he 
had enjoyed anything for a long, long while. He told himself that 
he was thoroughly interested — interested generally in this thor- 
oughly old-world English home— interested particularly in finding a 
fellow-artist in the young girl of the house. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

After dinner, Lilith and her mother wrapped themselves in 
woolen shawls and sat out on the terrace. Presently the men joined 
them to smoke; and Madam Ware w^as coaxed out to sit in her easy- 
chair. Coffee was served on little tables. 'The air was warm, the 
clear dark blue overhead was studded with stars ; the scent of the 
flowers in the marble vases mingled with the fragrance of the coffee, 
the pungent odor of the cigars. 

“ This is even better than Italy,” said Druce, in a low voice to 
Lilith. 

The word “Italy” struck a chord in his memoiy. As if by 
magic, he seemed to see the group in the Italian gaiden — the fair 
pretty nurse, the clambering bambino, the young Marcbesa, with 
whose strange dark beauty he had suddenly fallen in love — as deeply 
as a young man of the poetic temperament can fall in love with a 
being he may not approach or hold any sort or manner of converse 
with, who indeed, wdth the probability of never meeting again, seems 
almost as fleeting and unsubstantial as a dream. 

He knew now — Lilith recalled the Marchesa. It was the same 
aquiline outline. As she sat by him, her great eyes searching 
vaguely into the darK-blue vastness above the poplar- trees^ it was 
the same rapt, wondering look that told of a longiug unsatisfied 
mind. 

“ If my mother could only see her?’; he thought innocently, as 
he watched her, almost with solicitude. It was his somewhat 
French idea to share all his admirations with his mother — at least. 


A AYOMAK’s LOVE-STORY. 145 

he explained this and that heauty to her, and she strained her sym- 
pathies to see and to feel as he did. “ She would say as she said of 
my Tasso — ‘ There one sees the living soul,’ ” he thought, as he 
unthinkingly asked Lilith what she saw there in the sky. 

“ Nothing,” said Lilith brusquely, for she was startled. Those 
vague regrets that the past was gone, that the present and the futuie 
were what they were — these were confronting her from the still dark 
horizon. 

Diuce was repelled. He got up and strolled to the end of the ter- 
race; Willie and Lilian were there. A peal of soft laughter made 
Lilith thrill with a sense of loneliness. 

“ My fate to be alone!” she thought bitterly; “ then, as she saw 
her grandmother walking feebly toward the open windows, her 
heart reproached her; she sprung to her, and lent her the help of 
her strong young arm. 

“At least they will be left me,” she told herself. She would 
never marry; she would stay at the Hall, and strive to be more and 
more to the squire and madam as they waxed weaker and more de- 
pendent upon others. 

The next day the lawyer arrived, and there was a little ceremony 
— the signing of the settlements. Then Lilith, who thought she had 
annoyed the young painter, for whom as an artist she had allnost a 
veneration, meekly asked his assistance to cut flowers for the house- 
decoration and lor the arch they were erecting in the park ; and they 
spent a sultry morning cutting and hewing off blooms, huge and ]it« 
tie, and laying them in great clothes-baskets, which were carried 
away by the oldest boys in the village school; then they joined the 
schoolmaster and the boys at the arch. Druce was on a ladder, 
nailing up branches which Lilith handed to him, and they w^ere all 
very busy and merry, when a thunder-shower came pouring down; 
there was a smart clap of thunder, and a general rush to the house. 
Lilith and Michael raced; but, before they scampered in at the hall 
door, they were wet to the skin. 

How it was neither knew; but from that moment all ceremonious- 
ness of manner, all the “misters” and “mademoiselles” were 
over. Michael and Lilith were like boy and girl. Their hilarity 
affected the others. It was a merry luncheon-party at the Hall that 
da 3 ^ Even the staid family lawyer unbent and laughed and talked 
like an ordinary individual. There was a discussion as to whether 
their programme for the afternoon— tea at the Rector}^ — could be 
carried out. The colonel declared it could. 

“ 1 have set my heart on showing our friend there my idea of an 
English clergyman’s home,” he said. 

At that moment into the room came a broad stream of sunshine; 
so presently the ladies put on their bonnets, and they started, a 
walking party of five— Willie, Lilian, and the colonel in front, Lil- 
ith and Michael following. The greensward was thirstily drinking 
the grateful rain, faint mists hung about the leaves, lately so hot 
and dry, now gleaming wet. The fern-fronds glittered with thou- 
sands of tiny drops. Michael and Lilith noticed all the loveliness of 
the freshened land. As they gained the Rectory lane, they delighted 
in the soft aromatic odor of the earth, in the peculiar sweetness of 
the honeysuckle. The nut-trees and the blackberry-bushes gave 


146 


A LOYE-STORY._ 

forth a faint scent — as it were a foretelling of their fruiting. Then 
came a breeze toying with the hay-wisps ieft upon the hedges by a 
wagon they iieard toiling on in front. It was more than a picture, 
for they could smell and touch as well as see; and there w^as an 
inner satisfaction in hearing the birds chirping to each other, the 
crack of the wagoner’s whip, the heavy steps of the cart-horses, the 
cows lowing in the Kectory meadowy and the cheery voices of their 
companions who were walking on ahead, wiiich made Michael feel 
joyous — he knew not why. 

The party in front waited for Michael and Lilith at the gate of 
the Rectory fields. Just before thi^ gate was reached, the winding 
lane sloped upward between its high overgrown hedges. The smil- 
ing picture, hidden by the hedge on Druce’s right, burst upon him 
unexpectedly— the smooth slopes, green after the rain, the purple 
hills in the distance, the patches of woodland, the clumps of grace- 
ful trees, the Rectory building and the bailiff’s picturesque cottage 
in its leafy garden hard by, and the brook that meandered through 
the fields and went rippling through the Rectory orchard. 

How different,” he began. 

” From France?” asked the blue-eyed bride, with a little sigh. 

Even now the suggestion of foreign countries recalled her griefs, 
and, casting a shade upon her face, restored some of its former pen- 
siveness. 

She, the heroine of the moment, and he, the young Anglo-French 
painter, walked onward together. They were the first to reach the 
garden gate, and, after walking between the overgrown lavender 
and fuchsia bushes, to enter the narrow passage of the Rectory. A 
cuckoo came out from the little Swiss clock and announced three 
quarters. Mary Rawson, dressed in pink, with sweetwilliams in 
the muslin folds of the kerchief at her fair neck, came out from the 
dining-room, stopped short, then, with a disappointed glance at 
Druce, welcomed them. 

” But the rest?” She looked anxiously toward the door. ”1 
thought Lilith and the colonel ere coming. ” 

” Here they are, my dear,” said Mrs. Drew, as the three came up 
the garden path, the colonel last. 

Tile colonel was silent, and his face was red. As the Rector and 
little Mrs. Rawson came out and they all went into the tiny draw- 
ing-room, he complained of the heat. 

Willie and Lilian were lingering in the open doorway — indeed the 
Rectory reception-room seemed crowded with its tew guests, and 
noisy with their chatter. Still il was cool and pleasant — flowers in 
pots and vases everywhere, all the furniture in spotless holland, 
fresh feathery asparagus in the grate, the tiny tables laid for tea, 
with the Rector’s old family silver and his wife’s china. Michael 
Druce felt perfectly at home here at once; he lihed everybody and 
everything. Pie carried the tea-cups for Mrs. Rawson, who had al- 
ready felt that there was something remarkable about this young 
man with the sharply-outlined square face, the unmanageable crop of 
hair, and the luminous eyas. While admiring those soft pink-faced 
English girls, Mary and Kate, and thinking the Rector, wdlh his 
handsome gray head, his resonant voice, and his neat black garb, a 
wonderful model of a British .pastor, he had eyes and ears princi- 


A ^VOMAK’S love-story. • 14:7 

pally for Lilith. He knew where she was looking, what she was 
doing; and, as she sat there, silent, he wondered what she was 
thinking of. But he would not ask her again point-blank, as he did 
last night on the terrace. He would cultivate her acquaintance and 
try to gain her friendsliip. 

“ Tiiere is something mysterious about her, something hidden, 
something misunderstood,” he thought. 

Disliking the commonplace, the idea of gradually learning to 
understand this exceptional girl was a new interest. 

Lookers-on proverbially see the game more fully than the play- 
ers. The pair in the doorway were no exception to a well-proved 
rule. Lilian, as she leaned against the door, smiled to herself as she 
noticed the colonel, his elbow on the mantelpiece, bending over 
Mary Rawson, talking, while Mary was looking up into his face; 
and, as she saw Michael Druce hovering about Lilith and stealthily 
watching her when he thought himself unseen, slie felt a new con- 
tent, a sweet sense of relief. She would not confess to hersell w^liat 
she had feared about Lilith; but she knew that to see a possible ad- 
mirer of her loved child in this clever attractive young man was de- 
lightful to her. She gave a little sigh of joy as she looked up at 
Willie with the earnest confident expression that was the index to 
her complete surrender to her future husband’s will, and asked him, 
almost with childish amusement — 

“ Do jmu see?” 

Her smile tailed as Willie, who looked bored or annoyed, replied 
somewhat shortly-^ 

“ We will talk about it by-and-by.” 

“ Oh. no,” she said, with a sudden misgiving — “ not by-and-by; 
let it be now! See— they are going to the farm. 1 heard the colonel 
speak to Mrs. Rawson about it. Let ns go into the garden.” 

Willie looked abstractedly toward the door leading to the garden, 
then at the little company within. They were all standing about 
somewhat undecided. Then the Rector came to the lovers and asked 
,it they would care to go round the farm. . 

“ Colonel Ware wishes his young friend to see what we have to 
show him.’^he said. “ But surely you two don’t care to go?” 

‘‘ 1 am going to pay my farewell visit to the garden and orchard,” 
answered the bride; and presently, after the little company had de- 
parted, and the sound of their cheerful voices was growing fainter 
as they crossed the fields in the direction of the farm-buildings, she 
turned to Willie, and said, “ You will come?” 

He had been looking grave and moody, for him; but the sight of 
a well-remembered pathetic, wistful look in Lilian’s eyes recalled 
him to his present self. 

“ Anywhere with you, darling,” he answered almost sadly. ” I 
hate interfering with yopr pleasure, Lilian; but the fact is, 1 am 
anxious about Lilith. I do not like that young man’s manner to 
her; you know I am — or 1 shall be directly— responsible for her.” 

‘‘ What do you not like?” asked Lilian— they were traversing the 
graveled path that led through the laurel plantation to the Rector’s 
orchard. ” 1 saw nothing to find fault with.” 

My dear” — Willie spoke with sudden energy — “where are 


148 A WOMAK'S LOYE-STORY. 

your eyes? That, Druce’s flirting, or attempting to flirt, with that 
child — that mere baby.” 

‘‘ Lilith is scarcely a baby, or a child,” said her mother softly, 
though her shell-like little ears grew crimson. “ 1 cannot say that 
1 disapprove ot the young man's behavior; 1 suppose Lilith must 
fall in love and be engaged and married in due course, just like 
other girls?” 

“ But not now, not at her age. Lilian, if you can bear to see her 
innocence, her thorough ignorance of all that is vile and mean in 
life, spoiled, 1 tell you 1 cannot— and that is the truth,” replied 
Macdonald. “ YVe must protect her — you and 1.” He drew his 
future wile’s hand affectionately upon his arm. ” You know so 
little of the world in its present phase, dearest, you must let me 
judge for you. Lilith to have a premature love-affair would mean 
Lilith’s future being spoiled irrevocably — and you know she is a 
genius. ’ ’ 

He said much more upon the same subject, so calmly and reason- 
ably that Lilian felt comforted and repentantly horrified at the wild 
idea that had crossed her mind — that Willie had once cared more 
for Lilith than he knew or suspected. 

” j.t is so easy, so terribly easy, to mistake one’s own feelings,” 
thought the poor bride, who remembered how she had loved this 
man who was to be her second tiusband — ay, and devotedly, pas- 
sionately — before she even knew that she preferred him to the com- 
monest, most ordinary acquaintance. 

They were in the orchard; Lilian’s dress swept the long grass 
under the trees. The boughs were laden with fruit; the sky was 
blue between the fiultering leaves. 

We must not go on — the grass is wet,” said Willie; so he led 
his Lilian back, across the rustic bridge that spanned the busy 
brook, swelled by the rain, back into the garden. He chose a seat 
in an arbor near the drawing-room windows and began to smoke. 

‘ ‘ If they choose to look out for us, they cannot accuse us of 
being anything but prosaic,” he said, as he lit a cigar and lounged 
in a wicker chair opposite to one Lilian had chosen. “ They cannot 
say we are giving them a bad example.” 0 

Lilian laughed, although she felt strangely sad. Then they talked, 
first of their own affairs, then of the colonel. * 

“ 1 think he likes Mary very much,” remarked Mrs. Drew. 

“Well, you ought to be glad that he is consoling himself for 
having lost you,” said Willie. “ 1 do not think that, in his place, 

1 should have been so easily comforted; however, in this erratic 
world one never can tell.” 

“ Hush!” said Mrs. Drew. She heard footsteps in the drawing- 
room. “ In this miniature place you can hear from the roof to the 
cellar, and mce 'cersd. ’ ’ 

But the masculine voice was not the colonel’s. Both listened to 
its rising and falling cadence. Whoever the owner of the voice 
might be, he was talking earnestly, enthusiastically. 

“ 1 expect it is that young fool,” said Macdonald presently. He 
was leaning back in the chair, his arfiis folded, looking supercil- 
iously from between his half closed eyelids. “ He is holding forth 
about ait to the girls. 


A woman’s love-story. 


149 


At that momeDt the voice ceased; and Lilian, looking up, saw 
Lilith come to the window, look out vaguely with her peculiar 
dreamy stare, and say — 

“Poets are right; you are right. There is a feeling we don’t 
understand, Mr. Druce; it comes but once.” 

Then she moved away from the window, and the rest of her speech 
was indistinct. 

“ There,” said Willie impatiently, throwing away his cigar. “ If 
you wanted proof positive that wnat 1 said was right, you have it. 
Talking sentimsntal stuff of that sort to a mere child! 1 have no 
patience with it! Let us go in.” 

They found Lilith, Kate Kawson, and Druce. 

“ Mr. Druce did not fall in love with the prize heifer or appreci- 
ate the pigs,” said Kate; “ and he was so languidly interested in see- 
ing Mary take the butter that 1 had compassion on him and brought 
him in.” 

Ah, you three are kindred spirits, you see!” remarked Willie, 
with a peculiar smile; then, feeliog ashamed of his captious humor 
— for which he could not have accounted — he made an effort, and at 
least seemed his own cheery self again. 

fle had not attached any particular importance to Lilith’s talk at 
the window; but tlis girl’s earnestly-spoken words haunted her 
mother all through the moonlit walk back to tlie hall and the rest- 
less night she spent afterward, all through the succeeding days of 
wedding bustle, till th^ climax of her disquietude was reached on 
the very morning of her wedding-day. 

Awakening in the gray dawn, her room full of solemn gray shad- 
ows, all without and within the hall hushed, even the birds in the 
great trees outside in the park, still slumbering, she questioned her- 
self and tortured herself with remorse for having accepted happiness 
selfishly, until at last she actually wept herself to sleep again. Then 
she had a peculiar dream. 

She dreamed that that day was not her wedding-day, but Lilith’s. 
She saw Lilith in the very bridal dress which Wfilie had insisted on 
choosing for herself — ivory satin and- old lace. The two were stand- 
ing betore the altar in Mr. Rawson’s little* church, where she and 
Lilith’s father, Captain Drew, had been made man and wife seven- 
teen years before; there were her bridemaids standing behind Lilith, 
the squire in a new blue coat with brass buttons giving Lilith to be 
married to -Willie. Then she turned suddenly and confronted her 
dead husband, living, and looking as he used to look in the old 
days before he deserted her for the fashionable actress; and he gave 
that old careless laugh of his, and kissed her cheek with that light 
» half-scornful kiss she had felt to be more bitter than had he merely 
nodded to her; then he said, “ Let us make it up, Lil. %We are quits 
now; 1 loved another T^man, and you have loved another man.” 

With the horror of that speech she awoke. Mary, the maid who 
had been with her through those long years of trouble, of solitary 
widowhood, was bending over her; she had brought her mistress’s 
breakfast, and, hearing her moan in her sleep, had roused her. 

Mrs. Drew, barely awake, sat up, stared around her, then cried— 

“Oh, Mary, 1 have seen the dead!” 

“ What a lucky dream, ma’am!” said the practical Mary, draw- 


150 


A ^yOMA^"’s LOVE-STOEY. 

ing up the blind ot the window nearest to the bed, and letting a 
stream ot sunshine fall full upon the glistening satin wedding- 
gown that was laid out upon a sofa “ As sure as 3"ou dreams of 
them poor dead and gone things ” — Mary spoke as she might have 
spoken of the dead leaves the gardener was sweeping up below — 
“so sure the living’s a-occupying themselves about you. Come, 
ma’am — you really have overslep’; and Mr. Macdonald’s been up 
from the Ware Arms and all on the fidget to see you; but Miss Lil- 
ith’s got the message.” 

Here a joyous laugh came up through the open window. 

“ There she is!” said Mary, going to the window and opening it. 
“ Miss Lilith, your mar’s aw^ake, miss; so ^ou may as Wellcome 
up.” 

“ All right!” came up from below. 

Then there sounded a distant clanging of bells — cracked bells, but 
rung with such a.good will that there was an infectious joyousness 
about their music. 

“ They’ve been at those blessed bells ever since six o’clock,” went 
on Mary. “But little wonder! They’ve a grand dinner cooking 
at the Ware Arms; and the little ’uns are to have one too, tor squire 
vf ent down yesterday afternoon and arranged it all at the school. Ah I 
it isn’t all the weddings that’ll give as much pleasure as yours, 
ma’am! ’ 

Here Lilith came in. Her white bridemaid’s dress was becoming 
to her. Her moiher looked at her admiringJy; and, as she looked, 
all anxiety, doubt, as to Lilith’s happiness tied away. 

Lilith had brought a box of while roses — wreath-sprays. 

“ My ‘ papa,’— as Mr. Druce will persist in calling Willie — begs 
you will wear these,” she said. “ We bridemaids have bouquets 
of them. It is very nice ot him,” she went on; then she kissed her 
mother, and the two had a little talk. 

Mrs. Drew soon discovered the cause of her daughter’s elation. 
Michael Druce had been persuading her to paint a picture for the 
Paris Salon. He was to help her with it. 

Nothing could have strengthened Lilian more or better than to 
see Lilith happy; and to go through that wedding-day required a 
certain amount of physical strength. 

First came the racket of arriving guests, then bridemaids tapping 
to come in, and hovering round the bride, all excited anxiety to take 
part — any part, however small — in the adorning business. It was 
very pleasant and complimentary; but — as ijilian thought, while one 
flourished a brush and another played with the comb, while a third 
fair damsel stood like Patience on a monument with elevated arms 
holding the v^pil, and a fourth was at her side watching with des- 
peiate earnestness for the right moment tovjcome to hair-pin the 
wreath to the bride’s coils of fair plaits — it was not an easy matter 
to get dressed at all; and the actual dressing was accomplished after 
the colonel, who was self- constituted master ol the ceremonies, had 
fetched each bridemaid and stored her away in her rightful corner 
of her distinct and proper vehicle. 4^fter seeing one depart, he had 
mentally totted her up as disposed ot for the monicnt, and had gone 
off upstairs to fetch and get rid of the next, almost wdth the deter- 


A WO:MA>q-’S LOYE-STOEY. 151 

mined persistence with which a dog- mother changes the where- 
abouts of her pups. 

Then the bride and the squire and madam drove away through 
the now deserted quiet park to the old church; and, as Lilian 
alighted and walked under the lime-trees on her father’s arm, the 
organ began to play, and in her heart she felt that Heaven would 
bless her and her husband. 

Then came the ceremony. The church was crowded with friends 
and neighbors, wlio had put on their gayest and best to show how 
coidiall}^ they wished some, brightness of life to the lady who had 
been so meek and patient under wanton ill-treatment. The same 
spirit seemed to animate all present. The Rector read the Marriage 
S<fl‘vice wdth sympathetic good will. The old clerk said his 
“Amen” with honest emphasis. The bridemaids ana wedding- 
guests were fluttered wuth the natural delight felt by the better part 
of human nature in seeing the deserving crowned, or the corner 
turned of some hard and desolate life. Then Willie, as bridegroom, 
was so manly and earnest that all doubt, fears, perplexities melted 
away; and, as she knelt by his side, his wife, Lilian Macdonald, felt 
safe. 

The signing in the vestry, the congratulations and embraces, were 
over. Willie and Lilian were alone in the carriage. Macdonald 
took a long look at the gentle happy face under the veil; then he 
raised the veil, and, taking his wife to his breast, told her that, as 
far as Heaven would permit, such sorrow and trouble as she had 
known, could not, should not come near her again. 

‘‘ For 1 shall be your shield, darling wife,” he said; “ and, as I 
said before, whatever grief may reach you must pass through my 
heart first.” 

“Heaven forbid!” cried Lilian. At that moment she remem- 
bered her dream, and shuddered. “ Why talk of the' past or the 
future? Let me be happy now — now,” she said, almost feverishly, 

while 1 can, while no one can come between us.” 

He soothed and comforted her. Then, hand in hand, they talked 
— not of themselves, but of others; of the old people, how they could 
divide their time among them; of Lilith and her idea of exhibiting 
a picture; and of those unfortunate children who w^eie constantly 
in Lilian’s thoughts. Willie had an idea about them, he told his 
wife, wdiich he would talk over with her later on. 

’rims they began the unselfish life they meant to lead together till 
death. Thus they averted the utmost fury of the storm which was 
slowly but surely gathering, unseen, unsuspected. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

The wedding-day was an affair. of the past. Y'et the breakfast 
and the speeches, the departure of the newly-married couple, the 
tea and ices and croquet and flirting afterward, and the dance in the 
big maiqiiee in the park at night, made pleasant talk for the young 
people of the neighborhood for weeks after. 

The colonel, in fulfillment of a promise given to the bridegroom 
just before he started, left the Hall, accompanied by Michael Druce, 
next day. 


152 


A woman’s lovb-stokt. 


I don't say that by and by 1 should have any objection to the 
young fellow," Macdonald had said. “ But 1 do not think it advis- 
able to have him lianging about here now. Lilith is too young." 

“You are quite right," the colonel had agreed. 

8o, on the day alter the wedding, guests, flowers, festal decora- 
tions, carriages, and white horses vanished Lilith was alone with 
her grandfather and grandmother in the silent old Hall; and, bu^ 
for the confusion in her mother’s room, where Mary was struggling 
with masses of tivssue- paper and piles of cardboard boxes of all 
shapes and sizes, all that remained of the new-made Mrs. Macdon- 
ald’s trousseau, but for the half-dismantled arch and the trodden 
gravel and the cart before the door which was being filled with dead 
flowers and withered evergreens, the wedding might have beeif a 
dream. 


Lilith had not danced. Michael did not dance. They had sat 
apart in a corner of the marquee talking. Michael had much to tell 
— of his travels, his adventures, and from the talk he drifted into 
confidences. He told Lilith of his first childish longings and dreams 
of the future, of his disappointments when he first began to draw' 
and paint. His experiences had been harder than hers. Her heart 
throbbed wdth sympathy. She understood it all so well.' 

“You have been through that sort of thing yourself — you know 
what it is," Michael said. 

Lilith disclaimed. The idea of comparing herself with bimi 

“You are a great artist; 1 am only Lilith Drew, " she said naively. 

Then Michael spoke so warmly of her talent, was so really enthu- 
siastic, so interested, so hopeful of an artistic future for her, that she 
took fresh heart. The next day, when he said good-by, he made 
her promise to work, to begin a real picture of her own composition 
to send to some exhibition. 

“ As soon as we are gone, take a walk, observe all you see, and, if 
you cannot make up a picture out of what strikes you most before 
you return, then you are not a born artist — that’s all. But 1 know 
that you can — you will." 

Lilian went out. She had to go to the village to see some bedrid- 
den old people peculiarly protected and cared foi by Madam Ware. 

The village was quiet, all the neat cottages seemingly deserted. 
The men — and some of the women too— were out working in the 
fields; the elder children were at school. As she was looking about 
for the materials for a picture which the young enthusiast had urged 
her to find, she heard a child cry. A baby had strayed from a cot- 
tage, and had tumbled over. An older child rushed out and picked 
up the chubby urchin, who had only his little white shirt on. Here 
was her gi’oup. She sketched it in pencil, went home and drew it 
on a canvas, then worked on steadily during the next few weeks 
from the children themselves. Their mother was only too pleased, 
to lend her children to Miss Lilith every day. 

If complete happiness in her work was a convincing proof of Lil- 
ith’s genius, it is^as there. During those weeks she was perfectly 
content. When she thought of her mother and Willie, it was with, 
pleasure that they were as happy together as their letters home un- 
mistakably showed. When she thought of Druce, it was with in- 


A woman’s loye-stoey. 15 B 

terest and gratitude; but she did not wish to see him till she had fin- 
ished her picture to her own satisfaction. 

With Druce it was otherwise. He had gone home wildly, madly 
in love tor the first time in his life. He had met his ideal — not only in 
external appearance, but in natural character. He told himself that 
Lilith’s brusqueness was truth and simplicity combined. She was 
open as the day, innocent as a baby; there were depths iii her heart 
and soul which would be known only when the great day of her life 
came — wiien she loved. He had vague hopes that, while he was 
restlessly chafing and yearning to see her again, she was longing to 
see him. 

Such love as mine cannot exist unreturned,” he told himself, 
with one of those delusive arguments bred of unreasoning passion. 
“ Surely she must feel something— however little — of all this! Dis- 
tance is nothing between souls.” 

Then he watched eagerly for a letter; but no letter came. He 
grew pale, and looked ^oomy. Mrs. Druce feared that he was 
bored with London, thanhis wandering fit was on him, and that, as 
had been his wont, he would come into her room early some morn- 
ing, say that he was “ oft,” embrace her affectionately, and remain 
away for months. She tried to find out if he was in love, and with 
whom; but he evaded all her little ruses to betray him into a con- 
fession. 

‘‘ y it is love this time, it is serious,” the old lady said to herself. 

She could not understand “ Michel’s” preference for the society 
of those old ladies jat Prince’s Square and the elderly colonel. 

Michel” was always inviting the colonel to breakfast. She cross- 
questioned the colonel with much deftness, but learned — nothing. 

Meanwhile Michael was trying to get a second invitation to the 
Hall. This was transparent to Colonel Ware. He was under a 
promise, so he took upon himself to warn Mrs. Macdonald not to be 
an unconscious 'postilion dJ amour. 

” The lad lias got his distemper badly,” he said to that lady. “ It 
may blow over, or it may not. In any case, it is not our business to 
interfere.” 

So Michael Druce found Lilith’s friends and relatives above being 
cajoled, although perfectly amiable and glad to see him. 

Another month passed — no letter from Lilith, no news of her. 
He grew desperate, and took a somewhat desperate step. One morn- 
ing h^ went down to Heathside, and boldly presented himself at the 
Hall. He was taken into the drawing-room, where Madam W are 
nnd Lilian, just returned home for a short visit, were sitting. They 
seemed surprised, but were kind. He was asked to stay for lunch- 
eon. He saw Lilith’s picture, which made him more in love with 
her than ever. But Lilith herself was “out” — they did not say 
where. He tried to find some excuse for lingering “ to see Macdon- 
ald,” who had gone to the market town. But he could not stay 
without the invitation which the ladies were evidently disinclined to 
give. He took leave, and went with a heavy heart toward the sta- 
tion. 

Lilith had been to lunch with Mrs. Fyres, the good-humored doc- 
tor’s wife, with whom she was very friendly. She had tried hard 
since her mother’s return to settle down to the new relations, the 


154 


A WOIIAH-’S LOVE STOKY. 


different position; and to a certain extent she had succeeded. Bui 
she -was in turns low spirited and querulous; and, being aware ot 
her discontented mood, she went out more than usual, that she might 
not let her ever-beloved mother suspect in the faintest degree that 
her gayety was feigned. 

' This afternoon she was returning slowly and wearily to the Hall. 
She was in a humor when she saw no beauty, no goodness, in any- 
thing. Kature, human beings, all seemed persistently to show her 
the worst aspect. The poor child, who was making a brave strug> 
gle, felt herself a hopeless pessimist. Then in the shrubbery she 
suddenly came upon Michael Druce. At first startled, she received 
him somewhat coldly. He seemed out of place there, as she then felt. 

At first he talked vaguely, wide of the mark. Then he suddenly 
changed. They had come nearly to the end ot the shrubbery; he 
nad turned back and accompanied her. In a minute the Hall would 
be m sight, and separation inev-itable. It he spoke at all to-day, it 
must be now. ^ 

Agitated, pale, he plunged into the subject. 

“You and 1 are not like other people,” he began. “ 1 believe you 
know already — ” 

Then, in vehement passionate •wmrds, he told her how he loved her 
— how he haa thought of nothing else since he saw her last — how he 
was wearing away his mental and physical strength because he could 
not see her — how he would have her for his love and his wife, and 
would defy every obstacle existent or to be created between them — 
in fact, he spoke with the strong will and burning passion which are 
irresistible to an unappropriated heart wanting an owner. 

But Lilith’s heart was not empty, not untouched. So the more 
furious he grew, the less she liked him, till she even felt a species ot 
disgust and aversion for a man whose talent she had almost wor- 
shiped. 

She tried to be kind. She would promise any friendship, any 
liking; but beyond that she was obdurate. The more he pleaded, 
the colder she grew. At last, in despair, he saw his mistake. He 
begged her forgiveness, accepted her sisterly friendship, and went 
away sorrowing. * 

And she returned home at once, chilled to the very core of her soul 
and in the fieicest passion. For she knew the truth. She knew 
that she had loved Willie Macdonald, although she loved him no 
longer; and she felt that he at one time had nearly loved her— there- 
fore that in some wa}^ he was guilty, punishable. 

“ But 1 wish him no ill,” she said to herself honestly. “ It is bet- 
ter as it is.” Then by degiees her good thoughts brought about a. 
great sympathy for Michael Druce. 

“ We seem destined to imitate each other’s lives,” she thought, 
with a sad smile. “ Well, we sympathize; but as to marrying any 
one one does not love — that is contemptible.” 

Love and marriage seemed an epidemic just then. But a few days 
later the colonel came down and announced his engagement to Mary 
Rawson. 

There was a quiet wedding; then Colonel and Mrs. Ware and Mr. 
and Mrs. William Macdonald -went abroad for the winter. 


A woman’s love-story. 155 

They asked Lilith to accompany them, promising that Mrs. Mac- 
donald would take her place at the Hall. But she retused. 

Then came a lull, a dead calm, while the whirlwind was at hand 
that would scatter hopes, intentions, poor petty human plans, as the 
hungry north wind scattered the dry snow that covered Heathside 
park the greater part of that quiet uneveutful winter. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

Winter was over and forgotten. Spring had come and gone. 
The fresh breezes and green leaves -which had brio;htened London 
had made way for sultry heat and foliage withering copper-colored 
on the black boughs. On oneot the hottest days of late July a fu- 
neral started from the house in Prince’s Square —an old-fashioned 
funeral — black cloth, nodding plumes, great black chariots, mutes. 
All that was left on earth of old Mr. Law went to Highgate Ceme- 
tery with the full pomp of the ancient regime. Mrs. Law sternly 
resisted the proposal of her brother, Mr. Rawson, seconded by her 
nephew, Willie Macdonald, her husband’s heir, for maimed rites. 
She would have neither abridgement nor modification. 

It was a melancholy funeral. Mrs. Law, as she stood by the 
grave, was rigid, stony, self-possessed. Mrs. Macdonald was there, 
looking worn out after her exertions as night-nurse. Mr. Rawson 
looked tired and sad. As Willie gazed down into the yawning hole, 
a robin, perched on a tree close by, began to twitter mournfully. 
Willie’s spirits sunk. His life had of late been flooded with sun- 
shine. At this moment he seemed to see his Lilian and the beauti- 
ful babe, a fair little son, recently born to them, from across the 
grave 

While he supported his aunt, the new-made widow, across the 
tuif, while they made the silent journey home in the dungeon-like 
black carriage, the words rang in his ears, “ Man walketh in a vain 
shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.” ” He cometh up, and is 
cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never 
cbntinueth in one stay.” • 

These and the robin’s song haunted him also throughout the 
luncheon, where the widow insisted on assuming her place at the ta- 
ble, Und he sat opposite to her, carving for the small party, who 
seemed unable to speak above a whisper, and throughout the rcarl- 
ing of the will, in the gloomy library at the back of the house. “ He 
heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them,” he mut- 
tered to himself, as, the reading of the will over, he found himself 
possessed of a capital far in excess of that he expected his uncle 
would leave, a fortune tempered only by a charge of life-interesi to 
be paid by him i,o the widow. 

He went to his aunt, who was sitting bolt-upright, her black- 
bordered handkerchief to her eyes, and said a great many kind duti- 
ful things. Then, as he found lie could not get her to listen, he em- 
braced his pale mother, and urged her to accept the general invita- 
tion issued by all in authority at Heathside Hall for her to go to them 
as soon and stay as long as possible. 

But, while he was trying to comfort the women, while he was ac- 


156 


A woman’s loye-stoky. 


cepting the congratulations of the lawyer and the family physician 
that his atfairs, through the wisdom of his late uncle, were placed 
on such a highly desirable footing, he felt that he was acting a part, 
tliat he was chilled, scared, miserable, that all this was unbearable 
to him, and that he had forgotten, almost suddenly, how to hope^ 
how to be happy. 

He got the Rector away as soon as he could. Taking his arm, he 
hurried him along the side of the square, and into the first hansom 
they met; then he drew a long breath. 

“Thank goodness, we are out of that charnel-house!” he cried, 
with a shudder. Uncle, what is there in death to paralyze us who 
are in life? 1 assure you that, while 1 stood by that grave and saw 
that coffin lowered, my heart seemed to freeze slowly in my body, 
my blood to run cold in my veins.” 

“ There are worse things in this world than death,” said the Rec- 
tor — “ in some cases, lite.” 

Turning abruptly, Willie saw the Rector’s eyes fixed on him with 
sadness, solicitude. 

“ What is it? There is something wrong!” he exclaimed, in con- 
sternation. 

“ My boy, you are nervous,” said Mr. Rawson, with as much of 
his genial collected manner as he could gather together and assume 
lit the moment. “ There is nothing exactly wrong. Only a trouble 
has come to me connected with a trust. I too, standing at poor 
Law’s grave just now, felt as it 1 would willingly change places 
with him and not be called upon to face the next few weeks — or 
possibly months.” 

“Trust? My dear uncle, that means money.” Then Vvillie, 
roused by his uncle’s seeming ill-luck, talked and urged and begged 
and entreated him all the time they were speeding homeward in the 
train to let him only know what amount he might require — it was 
more than at his service. 

“ Ah, my boy !” said the Rector, sadly, “ there are gulfs in one’s 
life that no money wdll fill in or bridge over; and 1 fear this may be 
one of them. But do not let me cast my burden upon your young 
shoulders,” he went on, with an attempt at cheerfulness. “ You 
want all your brightness for dear Lilian, for the babe, for Lilith too. 
By the way, I asfed the colonel to come for a night; 1 wanted to see 
him. Perhaps we shall find him at the station.” * 

Willie leaned back, but partly reassured, and thought long and 
deeply as they sped through the beautiful county now so dear and 
familiar to him. His forebodings had not been actually empty sen- 
sations. What could this “ gulf ” in the Rector’s life be which no 
money could fill in or bridge over? 

He could not imagine. In any case, he said to himself, glancing 
at his uncle’s handsome' profile, at the firm-set mouth, at the short 
silvery hair, with a new sympathy and liking, he and Lilian would 
stand by him, and by all of them — ay, and by the sharp-tongued 
Mrs. Rawson — to' the end. 

Willie had always felt kindly and generously to any who 
were “ under a cloud,” even when so by their own doing. But, 
since his marriage with Lilian, that quality which he disliked to 
recognize under the term “ philanthropy ” had increased in him. As 


A WOMAK S LOYE-STORY. 


15 ? 


the train drew up at the station, he looked even more anxiously than 
did Mr. Rawson tor the colonel’s stalwart figure. Colonel Ware 
was there, pacing tlie plattorm and looking bright and energetic. 

“ You two look as if you had been to a funeral,” he began. ” But 
what means this sudden summons, Rector? Mary was so disturbed 
by your telegram, in spite of your ‘ all well ’ at the end, that 1 have 
just wired to her to save her further anxiety.” 

Mr. Rawson said a word aside to him, and any one watching the 
colonel would have seen a change of countenance in the gallant sol- 
dier with the empty sleeve. Then the Rector turned to Willie. 

” Not one word of my affairs to Lilian,” he said, in an undertone. 

Then he asked if Willie could come round to the Rectory, should 
he and the colonel require him. 

“We may want your advice,” he said. ” Who is that in the 
pony- chaise waiting for you?” 

” Lilith,” answered Willie. 

Then the three went down the steps and talked to the young girl, 
who was at home for a month to join in the baby-worship — for no 
young Bacchus had more frantic followers making contortions and 
uttering strange cries than this young Geoffrey Macdonald, the 
colonel’s godson. Lilith was fast losing her ugliness, or rather her 
angularity and swarthiness were developing into a peculiar beauty 
which might be caviare to the multitude while being caviare to the 
epicure in art. 

” Madonna is well,” she said, in answer to Willie’s anxious look. 
Lilith was painting her mother and the babe as a Madonna and 
child, and she and Willie had come to call her this. ” She was a 
little sad this afternoon wmen we read the funeral service together, 
and she sent baby right away for a walk — 1 believe because he 
should not hear the word ‘ death.’ But she is cheerful again now.” 

Willie sprung into the carriage, took the reins, and, nodding to 
his uncle and the colonel, drove off rapidly. 

Then the colonel turned to Mr. Rawson. 

” AYhat is this all about?” he said. ” Will those pests neveiTeave 
us alone?” 

The colonel, although he had not won and married his Cousin 
Lilian, had not relinquished his interest in her affairs. As trustee 
with the Rector to her marriage-sel tlement he had acted in concert 
with him when the affairs of Captain Drew s three illegitimate chil- 
dren were to be arranged. The boy was at school; the girls were 
still with the lady who first agreed to take charge of them. A fort- 
night previously their actress- mother had died a quiet painless death 
in the house of a humane country doctor who lived near Ilfracombe. 
The doctor’s wife had nursed the unfortunate invalid— whos6 death 
would be a considerable pecuniary loss to the worthy couple— tender- 
ly through her long illness to the end. 

” What is this fresh demand?” repeated the colonel, tor the Rector 
was walking silently toward the fields leading to the Rectory. 

” Demand! A^'ould to Heaven it were a demand!” said the rector 
emphatically. ” Ware, just as 1 was starting this. morning 1 received 
an anonymous letter to inform me that that woman hoaxed us all, 
that Drew is not dead, but that he went mad, and is alive at this 
moment in some lunatic asylum in Italy.” 


158 


A WOMAN'S LOVE-STOEY. 


The colonel stopped short; this was a shock— at first. Then he 
turned to the Hector. 

“1 don t believe it!” he cried. “Absurd — untenable! The 
woman was immoial and a fool; but she would not have died with 
a lie upon her conscience!” 

“ She may have said this, and have sworn Doctor Hale and his 
wife to secrecy at the last moment,” said the Rector. “Heaven 
knows! It is an awful blow; at first it unhinged me so that 1 could 
scarcely meet it, lie or no lie.” 

“ Well, it must be met— ay, and dealt with at once,” declared the 
colonel sternly, striding along the path with a determined step. 
“Each moment lost is a wrong to Lilian, Good Heaven, till we 
have proved this thins a lie, what is she? WTiat is her child?” 

The Hector gave a faint groan. This anonymous statement of a 
rumor might be some malicious act of some enemy of Lilian’s or of 
Willie’s, or it might be what it professed to be— truth. He felt he 
ought not to be unmanned, timid; but he was not so young as he 
had been, and, disagreeable shocksgenerally do manage to deal them- 
selves at the worst moment for the recipients, so had this. 

“ W^hat are we to do?” asked the Rector helplessly. “ How can 
one fence with an enemy in ambush? And how are we to prove a 
negative? Search all the lunatic asylums in Italy? Why, it will 
take months!” 

“ Bah!” said the colonel. “ The way is as plain as a pike-stafi. 
W^ho received the news ot his death?” 

“ General Drew. But he died last January.” 

' “ Then we must find his executor. Of course he received some 
certificate or trustworthy documentar}^ evidence of his son’s death.” 

“ He was an old scamp! 1 wouldn’t trust him.” 

“ Scamp or no scamp, he would hardly be party to such a fraud. 
Even supposing that he let the news of ids son’s death pass without 
verifying it, we have other waj^s and means of getting at the truth. 
We must see this doctor and his wife at Ilfracombe, and find out 
whether the woman ever hinted at her husband’s being alive. Mean- 
while we must employ detectr^es in Italy, or wherever he died, to 
find witnesses of Captain Drew’s death — first of all, its entry in the 
parish-register. If dead, he must have been buried, and there must 
have been more difficulty than usual about getting him underground, 
he being an alien and a Protestant in a Caiholic country. IMy dear 
Hector, there are absolutely no difficulties in proving this report a 
lie.” 

“.Ah, but if it should not be a lie?” said his father-in-law. “ Such 
things have happened, worse luck! The woman may have been 
goaded to tell the lie in the hope ot bettering her position, of getting 
more sympathy from the relatives when they were softened 63 ^ the 
fact of Drew’s being dead— over and done with forever, as far as 
this world is concerned — than she could hoj^e for as the wife X)f a 
lunatic who might recover, be at large, and sponge upon them 
again.” 

“ Well, 1 am not going to judge. I^'irst of all, 1 must see the let- 
ter,” said the colonel, as they neared the Rectory. 


A -VVOMAiT'S LOVE'STORY. 


169 


CHAPTEK XXYll. 

It was a sweet dewy evening alter the sultry day. The rural 
homestead, covered with climbing roses, looked as if nothing but 
peace could possibly stay within its white walls. The trees leaned 
protectingly toward the thatched roof; two doves were cooing and 
pfeening their plumage near the chimney-stack, from which the blue 
smoke.rose in a steady column, for the next day would be “ baking- 
day,’" and they were heating the large brick oven. 

The Rector looked at the house and sighed; he thought of the 
narrovT grave he had gazed into but a few hours since, and he said 
to himself, “ Perhaps it is better to be there, unconscious of sin, 
misery, and suspense, than even here.” Of the Hall, of tlie squire, 
madam, Lilian, he had not had the heart to think since that awful 
threat of mischief to those — his dear friends — had met his eyes. 

Retook Colonel Ware through to his study, drew up the blind; 
then went to his escritoire, unlocked it, and silently handed the- 
colonel a letter. 

The direction was in clumsy printed characters^ So was the in- 
ck)sure, which was a half -sheet of note-paper. The colonel frowned 
fiercely as he read. 

“ To the Rector of Heathside. 

“ Sir,— 1 beg to inform you that Captain Drew, the lawful hus- 
band of the squire’s daughter of Heathside, did not die, as reported, 
last year, but is still alive and in a lunatic asylum in Italy. This is 
from A AVell-wisher.” 

“ A hoax!” said the colonel vehemently. “ A hoax on the face 
of it!” He turned the paper over and over. There was neither ad- 
dress nor date. ” There is ‘ E. C." on the envelope,” he said — the 
postal districts had been recently established — “and that is all the 
clew the rascal who penned this has chosen to give us. There is 
neither stamp of the maker's name nor w^atermark in either paper 
or envelope,” he went on, holding them in turn to the light. “ The 
wretches knew what they were about. By the way,” he added, re-”, 
turning the papers to the Rector, “ what became of those old drunk- 
ards who behaved so brutally to their daughter?” 

“ The father and mother of that woman?” interrogated J\lr. Raw- 
son. “ I took care to let the parisli authorities know about them. 
They had absolutely no clew to the whereabouts of the children — 
nor of their daughter— unless she gave it them. The wretches 
wrote to Lilian, begging once or twice, but 1 insisted on her taking 
no notice.” 

“ Then they have tried another method of blackmailing,” said the 
colonel. “ This is their work.” 

“ Then the first step is to find them,” remarked the Rector, with 
a gleam of hope. 

“ Our first step is to tell Macdonald,” said the colonel, rising, 
and walking to the window. 


160 


A woman’s LOYE-StORY. 

Tell— Willie?’' said Mr. Rawson, aghast. “Surely, we can 
manage it all without half killing the poor fellotv with suspense! 
Think, Geoffrey— consider!’'’ 

“ Our first step is to tell Macdonald,” repeated Geoffrey Ware 
doggedly, “ unless we drop being men of honor and turn Jesuits. 
You are not looking the situation in the face, man. William Mac- 
donald must leave Lilian — at once.” 

“ Leave Lilian? Oh, my poor girl -so delicate still too— so de- 
pendent on him!” 

“ He has a first-rate excuse just now. His affairs require his 
presence in town; the lawyers cannot do without him.” 

“ Bui she knows he could go backward and forward,” said the 
Rector. “ That wouldn’t satisfy hei' about the separation.” 

“ Then there must be some other valid excuse.’ 

“ His mother was looking ill,” said the Rector. “ But where are 
you going?”— for his son-in-law took up his hat, and was moving 
toward the door, 

“ Unless you are dealing with soldiers, if you want a thing done, 
do it yourself,” answered the colonel dryly. “ Sending a message 
to the Hall by one of the farm-men — or, worse still, hy one of the 
maids — would mean a buuirle. 1 shall bring Macdonald baeli with 
me in a trap and break the news to him at once, for there is no time 
to lose. He must accompany me back to town to-night,” he added 
significantly. “ He must not spend one hour at the Hall till all this 
is cleared up.” 

“ Oh, my poor bairns, my poor bairns!” groaned the Rector wo- 
fully, as he heard Geoffrey’s footsteps grow fainter in the distance. 
“ Will the consequences of that miserable man’s sin never come to 
an end? They were — they are — Heaven help them— so happy, so 
innocently, virtuously happy, and here is the serpent again, to sting 
them mortally perhaps this time!” 

His grief, as he buried his face in his hands, would have been still 
sharpei, his sell-reproach that ]t was he who had been instrumental 
in bringing Lilian and Willie together still more bitter, if he could 
have seen them at that moment. 

They were so happy ! 

Lilian, being still considered somewhat of an invalid, did not dine 
late as yet, and generally- retired to her room to superintend the great 
ceremony of baby’s night-toilet when the dinner-bell rang and the 
rest of the family party adjourned to the dining-room. This hour 
or two between afternoon tea and her baby’s bed-time was the most 
precious of all the day to the new-made mother. Willie was always 
with her, watching baby lying on her lap, stretching and kicking and 
cooing. Sometimes Lilith would kneel on the floor by them — she 
was never tired of coaxing baby to lavish his first smiles upon his 
big sister. Often Madame Ware would come to them, or the squire, 
who was highly pleased to have a grandson, although he secretly re- 
gretted that he was nut paternally a Waie — that the colonel was not 
little Geoffrey’s parent, instead of being only his jrodfather. He 
consoled himself the reflection that more than often first cousins’ 
children were idiots: and anything but a “ softy ” for him, even if 
it was a fast fellow. The Wares had been fast, too many of them! 

This evening Lilian was in the parlor when her husband returned 


161 


A WOMA^t’S LOVE-STORY. 

from Mr. Law’s tuneial; and, when the colonel arrived post-liaste, 
and was hy bis request shown at once into the “ parlor ” where Willie 
was, this was what he saw — Lilian, delicate, pale, but with a 
peculiarly youthful and angelic expression on her sweet face, halt 
crouching,* halt lying back on pillows in a large aim-chair, the pink 
fat baby sprawiing on her lap, a ray ot red sunlight falling across 
her golden hair — which was all loose upon her white wrapper — upon 
the firm mottled limbs of the infant, whose dress had been unfastened 
that he might have what hie mother called “ a good kick;” Willie 
sitting on the sofa, gazing delightedly upon his loved ones; and 
Lilith, still in her painting-frock which was ot all colors of the rain- 
bow and more besides — kneeling by her mother tickling baby’s dim- 
pled dheeks with a feather— a proceeding which, while it astonished 
him, he appeared to take pleasure in. 

And he, the colonel, had come to break up this happy gi\)up — per- 
haps for always! 

Another man might have flinched; but with Geoffrey Ware justice 
preceded mercy. He no more turned aside from what he considered 
to be his duty now than he would have done when giving the word 
of command to his men to advance upon the enemy, it their wives 
or children or mothers or sweethearts had thrown themselves at his 
knees imploring him to save their soldier-relatives from danger and 
perhaps death. 

Looking up, Willie read some urgent need for action in the 
colonel’s set face. At the sight of him he arose almost involuntarily. 

“ You want me,” he said, more as an assertion than in inquiry. 

“ Y’^es,” answered the colonel, ” at once. Will you order a chaise? 
The quicker we go the better. ” 

Willie went out. 

“ Who is ill?” asked Lilian anxiously, all the smiles fading from 
her face. ” Hush, baby!” for the infant screwed up his Lace and 
gave a cry. 

” No one,” said the colonel abruptly. ‘‘ The Hector w^ants to con- 
sult Willie at once on some important business.” 

About Mr. Law’s will?” asked Lilith, leaning against the table 
and looking keenly at Ihe colonel. She detected mischief, which 
persons with large powers of observation will scent as a trained 
hound scents a fox; 

” 1 did not ask,” said the colonel. 

Then Willie came back, and, going up to his wife, put his arm 
round her witu such caressing tenderness and kissed her and the 
baby so fondly, so protectingly, that even the colonel felt a pang. 

”1 shall not be long, darling,” he said. “My uncle told me 
he might possibly want me.” Then, turning to Lilith, he said, 
“ Don’t wait dinner,” adding in an undertone, “ Convince your 
mother that there is nothing, absolutely nothing the matter.” 

Those were the last words poor Lilith heard from her genial kind 
friend for many a weary day. 

The two men went silently round to the stable, where the groom 
was hastily harnessing a swift hoise to a light American two-wheeled 
chaise. 

“ You had better follow, and go straight to the station,” the col- 

6 


162 


A woman’s love-stoby. 


oiiel said aside to the man. “We shall be thereto meet the last up- 
train. And no word to any one here; do you understand?’^ 

“ Yes, sir,” answered the man humbly, as men generally spoke to 
Geotfrey Ware when he was “ on duty.” The colonel had assured 
himself of the groom’s trust worthiness some time before, therefore 
had no misgiving that his orders would not be executed. 

- “What is all this about?” asked Willie anxiously, as they sped 
along the road— the gray stepped out bravely. “ 1 cannot understand 
why my uncle could not tell me as we were coming home to-day.” 

“ He would not have told you but for me,” said Geoffrey Ware. 
“ 1 would not take a step in the affair until you were in it.” 

“ Am 1 implicated then?” asked Willie, a disagreeable suspicion 
arising in his mind that this mystery was no trifle. 

“ Widl, it certainly concerns you as much as or more than it con- 
cerns Mr Rawson; at all events, it concerns some one very dear to 
you both.” 

“ My wife?” Willie felt giddy,' his hands shook, it was well 
that they would presently reach the gate of the Rectory fields; he 
could hardly hold the reins. 

“ 1 think 1 may say ‘ Yes,’ ” said thecolonel. “ It may be a mat- 
ter of no moment, or it may be serious— there is no between; but 
the Rector will tell you better than I can.” 

Here they halted. They had not quite reached the gate of the 
fields; but the Rector stepped out from the shadow, and' one of the 
men on the farm came forward to stand at the horse’s head. 

“ Take the chaise gently through the field, and wait in the station- 
road,” said Mr. Rawson to the man as the colonel and Willie alighted. 
“ Has he told you?” he continued, turning to his nephew. 

“ 1 have prepared him,” said the colonel. 

Then the three marched silently down the sloping field into the 
house, which looked like some rustic haven of rest bathed in the 
pink light of sunset. Willie felt dazed rather than anxious; he had 
come into this Slough of Despond suddenly, he knew not how. He 
expected notmng; still he had no fear but that this darkness would 
soon pass — no tear, no real idea of what this all really meant, till he 
was seated in the Rector’s study, the anonymous letter which declared 
that Lilian’s former husband was still alive, that his wife was not 
his wite, his son not his lawfully-begotten son, in his hand, then — 

“By Heaven, this is a lie!” he cried, and fell back like a dead 
log, life, thought, sensation, arrested by the cruel shock. 

They dashed cold water on his face, laid him on the floor flat on 
his back, poured brandy down his throat as soon as he could swal- 
low, then assisted him in his struggles to rise. 

“1 repeat that it is a lie,” he gasped, the instant that he was 
sufficiently recovered to articulate, “ a foul, diabolical lie; and, if I 
had the creature, the scoundrel who invented it, here now, weak 
as I feel, I could twist his throat and crush the life out of him, if I 
knew 1 should swing for it!” 

He looked so wild, with his damp dishevelled hair, his furious 
eyes, his white drawn lips, that the Rector was frightened; and the 
colonel thought the man would hardly be fit for action till he had 
been-in the doctor’s hands; however, so soon as he roused his love 
for his wife and child, and saw how imperative it was that steps 


163 


A woman’s love-story. 

to prove tlie falsity of the anonymous liar should bedaKen for their 
dear sake, he rallied niinself with an effort and discussed the situ- 
ation with his two friends. 

Before ten o'clock struck from the old church on the- hill, the 
colonel, Willie Macdonald, and the Rector were all three on their 
way to Loudon, and two letters were dispatched, one from Willie 
to Lilian — 

“ jMy own Wife, — 1 have thought it right to accompany my 
uncle and Cousin Geoffrey to town to night, for 1 can render them 
material help in some important business. Say nolhing ot thi& to 
anyone; make any simple excuse you like to your parents; 1 wilL 
return as soon as possible. Meanwhile 1 pray Heaven to bless and 
keep my darlings. Willie.” 

Another, marked private, from the same to Lilith — 

“ Lilith, — 1 am terribly tried. 1 rely on you to keep our darling 
safe and w^ell, and your dear mother free from ideas of difficulty or 
danger to our happiness. 1 trust .you, dear Lilith. W . M.” 

Lilian was comforted by her husband's letter. Lilith, stealing in. 
late at night, saw her sweetly asleep, her baby on her arm. She 
stood looking at them, her face drawn with pain — she, who had 
never been rightly informed as to the death of Cap! ain Drew, had 
immediately suspected that her father might be still alive. 

Meanwhile she had written to her close friend Michael Druce— 

“ 1 fear some trouble is coming upon us through my late father. 
1 feel that you, as one who knows foreign countries, may possibly 
be able to give us important help. As a matter of tact, lam utterly 
ignorant of what this threatened trouble is; but 1 ask you, as a great 
favor, to go to Mr. Macdonald, and help him if you can; he is most 
likely in Prince’s Square. Your unhappy friend, 

“ Lilith. 

This was a gradually augmenting anxiety, but it was borne by many 
shoulders. 


CHAPTER XXVin. 

Michael Druce was working steadfastly in the house in Arbor 
Lane. Now tliat England, in the person of Lilith, had become dear 
to him. and now that England had taken him by the hand so far as 
to hang his picture upon the walls of her Academical Exhibition, 
his roaming fit was ai rested. 

At first his little French mother hardly believed in her good fort- 
une; but, wdien Michael came seriously to consult her aboufa per- 
manent studio, to ask her whether she would give up a sitting-room 
or part of the garden to build upon, she began to hope tnat at last 
her bird-on the-wing had come home to roost. 

“ There is some petite demoiselle to thank for this,” she assured 
herself, nodding her pretty quaint old head as she stitched away at 


164 A WOMAJf’S LOTE-STOET. 

Eer embroidery frame. “Ah,” — threading her needle — “ she and 
1 will be good friends, 1 promise her that — very good friends!” 

Still she had not the slightest suspicion as to who the petite 
demoiselle might be, for it was perhaps a. proof of the depth and 
realily of Michael’s passion for Lilith that he had not conhded this, 
his first manhood’s love, to his mother, as he used to confess his 
bo3dsh fancies and admirations, or relate tales of glorious beings he 
had met during his travels. 

“ She shall be my wife if she says * No ’ a million times!” he had 
assured himself after his first rebuff. At present he intended to 
wait and to work in silence. He was biding his time. 

The time was at hand— close— at the very doors; but he knew it 
not. The morning came which actualh^ was to decide his faie for 
life. 

He was in his studio. This was anciently the dining-room wheie 
he and his mother had entertained Willie Macdonald and Colonel 
Ware at breakfast on the morning they came to see his pictures. 

It was transformed. The window had been heightened; an 
alcove had been built out, with a stained-glass window, making a 
species of Eastern recess, with tiled flooring, cushions, fans pendent 
from the painted ceiling, and rich stuff curtains hung upon a rod, 
to be drawn as the light in the studio demanded. The skeleton and 
the lay figure had a new companion in a full suit of armor. , Spears 
and dented shields, savage trophies all beads and suiningbeetleskins, 
gieat rows of Venetian beads, shelves of pottery from all parts of 
the world, collected during his travels, covered the walls; a tew 
ancient Grecian marble morsels— hands, feet, mutilated heads— hung 
here and there, and there were one or two old oil-paintings. Druce 
had packed away all his sketches and pictures that were not sold, 
or exhibited, or hung about the house, in his former painting room 
upstairs; the one picture he was working at was on his easel. 

It was a portrait of Lilith, painted from memory. Memory? It 
was scarcely that. W as there one grand curve, one peculiar sweep 
of outline in her lithe figure, one shade of the peculiar brown of her 
marvelously delicate skin, one flash ot her great eyes, one twist or 
frown of her marked brows, one droop ot the expressive lips, that 
he had not mentally registered? This Druce asked himself when 
he began to paint Lilith’s portrait; and the answer, honestly given, 
was “ No.” 

It was a glorious picture, although but the painted effigy of a 
young woman. It grew into life more and more every day. Druce 
had painted his lady-love as an Eastern water-carrier. A brown 
water-jar was poised on her head, and she looked straight out of the 
canvas at the beholder with a glance inquiring, pathetic, fierce— a 
glance he had had from Lilith many a time, short though the period 
was during which he had known her. 

Mrs. Druce, poor little lad}% watched the coming into canvas-life 
of the creature magnifique, as she called that which she supposed to 
be purely and simpl}^ the offspring of her son’s imagination, little 
dreaming of his pensive passion while he painted the long lithe arms 
and dashed fire into the eloquent eyes, little dreaming that the origi- 
nal was an “ English mees ” who ought, according to her idea, to 
have been fair, round, blue-eyed, and simpering as a Greuze model. 


165 


A woman’s loye-stoky. 

The picture seemed more alive than ever that morning when the 
old butler, with a look half' chiding, half inquisitive, brought 
Michael Lilith’s letter. He waited, seriously watching his young 
master; but he was scarcely prepared for his excitement. 

Lilith appealing to him! Lilith presuming he had knowledge of 
her dead lather!— he had heard the story from the colonel. Lilith, 
in trouble, asking him, Michael, to help her! It seemed so extraor- 
dinary, so bewildering, he grew giddy; he hardly knew what to do, 
whither or when to go, at first. But in a few. minutes he calmed 
down. He went to his mother, told her a friend who was in trouble 
had sent for him, then dressed as calmly as he could, and went oft 
to Prince’s Square. 

Never had hansom seemed so ponderous, horse so lazy, driver so 
listless! He did not know why Lilith sent him to Macdonald or 
what he was to do; but he obeyed her as if she were his queen 

Arrived at Prince’s Square, his knock was answered by the but- 
ler, more solemnly discouraging in his manner than ever. 

Mr. Macdonald? He did not think that Mr. Macdonald could see 
any one. Perhaxjs Mr. Rawson might. Would he wish to see Mr, 
Raw son? 

Of course he would; and, as he gave his card to the man, 
MieJiael slipped a gold coin into his hand, which, although it con- 
siderably softened Mrs. La'w's factotum’s manner, exercised his mind ; 
and, as he took in the card, he felt, as he afterward told the cook, 
“upset.” 

Mr. Rawson came out; and, although he wondered at seeing 
Druce just then, he asked him into the library. 

“ These are my credentials,” said Druce, handing him Lilith’s 
letter. 

The Rector sat down in a library chair and read Lilith’s letter— 
seemingly with great deliberation; but he was thinking — rapidly. 

“ Do you mean to help us, my dear boy?” he asked. 

“ With all my strength. 1 cannot say more,” said Michael. “ I 
am not clever, as you know, sir. 1 am barely a man, as men go 
in these days — much less am I a man of the world; but, to tell you 
the truth, 1 love Miss Drew. I told her so, and she rejected me on 
the spot. But it made no difference to me; and, I tell you candid- 
ly, 1 hope to win her some day. Meanwhile 1 would go to the end 
of the world for her; and, you see, she does me the credit of know- 
ing that.” 

He spoke ingenuously. The Rector appeared slightly amused; 
but he was not the one to underrate an enthusiastic ally. They had 
a long talk. He took Druce greatly into his confidence. Michael 
knew much of the state of affairs already; but this recent phase as- 
tonished him. 

“ Do you mean to say they have actually put themselves out about 
an anonymous letter?” he'asked contemptuously. “My dear sir, 
you should be a public person who has made — 1 don’t even say a 
great success — but some success! You would care tor anonymous 
letters less than you would for a slight shower like this ” — it was 
raining — “ when you are provided with a good stout umbrella. You 
protect yourself by indifference, and go on just the same.” 

“ That would scarcely do in this case,” said Mr. Rawson sadly. 


166 


A woman’s love-story, 


“ To begin with, we have to deal with adventurers. The woman 
who ran away with Captain Drew was plausible; she could write 
eloquent letters and assume the saint at will — a wa}" that would 
hoodwink anybody; but she may have lied all the time. 1 cannot 
blit feel that she did. We have seen General Drew^’s executor — a 
Captain Mayne. He found no paper whatever that was an authen- 
tic witness to the death of Captain Drew. The colonel himself has 
started for Ilfracombe, to hear every particular of the unfortunate 
actress from the doctor and his wufe under w^hose care she died. A 
detective is searching for those depraved old people her parents, wiio 
will be compelled to stand and deliver what tliey know, if indeed it 
is to be got out of them.'’ 

Here W ill ie Macdonald came in. Two days of this disturbance 
had changed him. His cheeks seemed hollow, he w^as of a sallow 
pallor, his hair was rough, and he looked altogether unkempt, as if 
he had been up all night. 

“ Ah, Druce, how are you?” he said cai’elessly; then he went and 
asked Mr. Rawson in a low tone if ” they ” had come back with 
that ‘ Bradshaw.’ ” 

“ You can speak loud, my boy. Mr. Druce, our friend, knows all 
about this.” 

” And pray v^o told you?” asked Willie surlily of Michael. 

” 1 have had a letter from Miss Drew, asking me to offer you my 
services — and that 1 do most heartily,” said Michael, rising and 
going up to Willie, who was leaning with folded arms against the 
dining- table. 

“ Thanks; but there is nothing to be done,” returned Willie, in 
the hard voice which is so often the index of despair. ” 1 am now 

starting for , where that woman wrote from, stating that her 

paramour was dead. 1 expected they had brought the latest Conti- 
nental ‘ Bradshaw ’ to my uncle there; 1 was waiting for it; but 
they are such a time over everything!” he said irritably. “Pa- 
tience? Ifob’s patience would have been of no use these daj^s!” 

Here the butler brought in the thick little book with the flimsy 
yellow cover which has made its appearance as often amid the great- 
est misery as in the presence of happiness, and the three, with ear- 
nestness that was almost desperate, began to consult time-tables of 
mail-trains, expresses abroad, and the hours of arrival and depart- 
ure. 

Michael Druce was of great service. As a constant traveler, he 
was a man who had lived in foreign countries and knew their 
“ ways ” ^tter than he knew the manners and customs of his own 
country. He had an intention to carry out, so he was unusually 
gentle and forbearing with Willie, who,* when Michael said present- 
ly, in a determined manner, “ 1 will accompany you,” did not re- 
fuse. He had previously refused the Rector’s companionship, feel- 
ing that, it he tailed, if he found that Captain Drew had not died as 
stated, he would have no man living witness to his agony, if indeed 
he did not end it by suicide there and then. 

Michael was inwardly ^I’atified, though he would not show it, lest 
Macdonald, in his irritated state, should change his mind. So he 
arranged every tiring in a very methodical and matter-of-fact mam 


A woman's love-story* 1G7 

ner. He sent a note to his mother, with instructions for packing; 
then he wrote to Lilith — 

“ My dear Miss LilttR,— Assure your mother that her husband 
is well. He is allowing me to assist him in his business, and in a 
very little while we shall hope — all— to meet again at Heatliside. 

“Yourfaithfulfriend,- 

“Michael/' 

Lilith, who had begun to suspect that something was seriously 
amiss, had had trouble with her mother. 

Mrs. Macdonald, on whose second married lite no actual cloud 
had rested, had, in spite of her eflorts to be calm, been slightly un- 
hinged. She had had a restless night with the young autocrat 
Geoff re}^; and Lilith, stealing into her mother’s room in the early ^ 
morning, found her in tears. She tiied to hide them; but Lilith; 
who meani to have no shadow between their minds while she was in 
-charge ot the mother and babe, said boldly — 

“ You have been crying — what about?” 

Then she sat dowm on fhe bed, and laughed at her-^actually dared 
to tease her — then went down to the squire, and said he must “ lead 
her a life — that she was lovesick.” Then, later on, she made very 
merry with Kate Rawsbn, wdio came to call, and who knew and sus- 
pected nothing; and, as it w^as a fine hot day, they sat out in the 
garden with Madam Ware and Lilian and the baby, and Lilith 
fetched some oldest of old nursery-books which she had found in a 
closet in a lumber-room — the squiie’s baby-books, most likely— and, 
reading these aloud and looking at the rudimentary attempts at 
woodcuts, passed away the time till the nurse came to carry in the 
young monarch, when his court broke up and his mother followed 
in his train. 

She seemed tranquil and content; but that night, wdien Lilith, 
who had insisted on sleeping in the next room to her while Willie 
was away, was just extinguishing her candle, she heard a shrill cry. 
Bushing into the next room, she saw her mother standing there m 
the moornighl, wringing her hands. 

‘‘ He is dead,” she cried— “ he is dead!” She had been dream- 
ing. 

Lilith lit her candles, and soothed and comforted her — almost as 
it she were the mother and Lilian the child; then she summoned the 
nurse, sent her with the baby into the next room, and stayed with 
her mother till morning. 

Mrs. Macdonald was unhappy about her husband. The one idea 
which gave her comfort was that on the morrow she would receive 
a letter from him. 

‘‘ To-morrow^ will be the fourth day since he left me,” she said. 
“He must have had time to write by this.” 

Lilith assented. When she watched the old postman coming 
along the road through the park with the post bag, she fetched the 
key, rushed to meet him, sent him round to the servants’ quarters — 
W'here he usually rested till the bag was ready for him again — ran 
in through the hall door, unlocked the bag, and shook out the con- 
tents upon the sideboard in the dining-room. Not one from Willie! 


168 A WOMAH’S LOVE-STOET. " 

She turned them over again in consternation. What was she to 
do? 

She must put a brave, face upon the matter. She went to her 
mother’s room, and chatted “nothings/' remarking casually that 
there was no letter from Willie. 

“ Late for the post most likely,” she said. 

Her mother made no remark, and remained very silent. 

Late in the afternoon Mr. Rawson was announced; he had com- 
posed his face, into a less troubled expression by the mirror in the 
hall, and, as he went into the drawing-room cheerily saying, “ Well, 
what news?” his little bit of acting deceived even Lilian Macdonald 
herself. 

There could not be much gone wrong, she thought, as she sat and 
talked lo the Rector in the gloaming. 

“ Oh, indeed! Well, with all he has to get through, 1 don’t won- 
der,” he said, in answei to her remarks that Willie had not written. 
Then he gave her a lengthy account of the disagreeable legal busi- 
ness attendant upon ill- worded wills. “1 don’t know what Mr. 
Law’s solicitor can have been about,” he remarked. “ The matter 
was really so extremely simple— all left to your husband, only a life- 
interest to Mrs. Law, chargeable upon the estate, l ou can imagine 
how anything involved annoyed Mrs. Law, who thinks, resolves, 
and acts almost at one and the same moment.” 

“ Yes,” said Lilian; “ but 1 hope the money is all safe. There 
Will be no Chancery business?” she added timidly, for her ignorance 
of law was much tlie same as that of any ordinary woman. “ Every 
one will get everything?” 

“ Oh, dear, yes!” answered the Rector, inwardly, gratified at the 
success of his speech. “ It may be a matter of a week or two, per- 
haps only of a few days.” Then he changed the conversation to 
ordinary impersonal topics. Even Lilith, who had been examining 
his face curiously from under her long black lashes, could not quite 
“ make him out.” 

She thought it would look suspicious if she followed Mr. Rawson 
from the room, so she settled her anxiety and her curiosity as to 
what was being done, and was content with the fact that her mother 
seemed more “ herself.” 

Mr. Rawson went out pleased, although several times during his 
journey home he stopped short and said, “ If 1 have told lies, may 
Heaven forgive me!”— and, as he drew near to liis home, and saw 
the lights twinkling about the rustic house, which was defined in 
clear black outline against the luminous evening sky, he told him- 
self that never more — no, never — would he dare to. think or say 
aught against the Jesuits, for he had been worse than a Jesuit him- 
self. 

He avoided going to the Hall again; he sent Kate instead. The 
first three days she brought him good news — at least she had evi- 
dently not noticed a difference in Mrs. Macdonald or Lilith. 

After a day or two, Mrs. Rawson went to the Hall; she brought 
back a note from Lilith to the Rector. 

“ What are we to do? What is going on? No one has written. 
Ho you know anything? 1 will be at church to-morrow morning, 
and will come to the vestry for your replies. ” 


A woman's love-stoey. 


169 


chapter XXIX. 

The next clay, Sunday, was wet, but Lilitli insisted on going to 
church. She saw her godfather, who comforted her as well as he 
could. Everything that could be done was being done, et emtera, 

“But have you heard from any of them yet?” asked Lilith. 

“ Surely there has been time! At least the colonel might have found 
out something — you say he is only in Devonshire. Then Michael, 
and Willie?” 

The Rector explained that their business might be an affair, of 
weeks, and during that time he could not write—how could he? 

“ What shall we do?” cried Lilith, unnerved. 

“ My dear, dear child, there is nothing for us but patience,” said 
Mr. Rawson — “ nothing, nothing; if we are patient, nothing can get 
the better of us. If the great trial should come to me that 1 niay 
have to tell your mother to prepare for a terrible shock, 1 shall have 
the strength to do il. Not that 1 think this,” he added, seeing an 
awful look settle upon Lilith’s face; “ but it is the best thing that we 
can do, while we hope for the best, to prepare for the worst.” 

Lilith went home utterly wretched. 

The Rector felt oppressed with fear; the colonel had not written. 
At present the detectives had not discovered the old couple they 
wer3 seeking, and Michael and Willie were silent. 

Two days more, and the Rector determined to face Lilian Ware— * 
as he called her in his own mind, in his hoiror of what her legal 
name might still be. He started for the Hall in the early morning; 
the harvesters were at work, the dew sparkled in the sunshine on 
the grassy hedgerows, the meadows looked fair and peaceful, the 
birds sung happily in the wood. Gazing at the lovely landscape ■ 
spread out before him, at the violet haze above the wooded hills, at 
the streamlet curling in and out, bordered by willows under wdiich 
the cattle herded, some lying down, some standing and switching 
their tails, it seemed impossible to him that this beautiful world 
could be the stage on which such a soul-tragedy would be enacted/ 
as that which threatened the innocent, loving Lilian, her husband, 
their boy — in fact, the whole family. 

“ It will not be,” he said to himself, setting his stick firmly upon 
the ground. “Our God punishes, but He does not torment. It 
cannot be true!” 

He was in the lane. The next turn would bring him out opposite 
to the park gates. Just as he said the words aloud, he turned. He 
heard galloping, a shrill voice urging a panting horse. He had 
barely time to stand aside before Lilith cantered up— -she was on the 
squire’s black horse. 

“What a mercy 1 have met you!” she cried, springing down. 
“My mother — 1 think she is dead, or dying; some letter — it is 
clinched in her hand! They have gone for Doctor Fyres — I came 
for you! Get up — let me ride behind you!” 

The Rector, stunned for a moment, mounted the great creature as ' 
if he had suddenly become a boy of twenty again. Lilith sprung 


ITO A tvouan’s love-story. ' 

up lightly, and held him round the waist. Thus they arrived at the 
Hall. 

“ The dining-room — at once!’/ cried Lilith, flying before him. 

The Rector threw the reins to a groom, who was awaiting them, 
half scared out of his wits, and followed her. 

Lilian was lying stretched upon the floor in the great dark room. 
At first sight the Rector thouglit life must have left the motionless 
body; ttiere was the grand awful calm of death upon tne expression- 
less features. Madam Ware was crouched by her daughter; she 
and Mary the maid were quietly chafing her hands, sprinkling her 
face, using the prescribed means of restoration The squire was 
standing apart, the tears rolling down his quivering face. He 
looked shrunken and aged. 

“They have killed my gal, Rawson!” he said. “They have 
kilted her— my only gal! But I don’t know how— 1 don’t know 
how!’’ Then he sobbed like a child 

“Look at this!’’ whispered Lilith, slipping something into the 
Rector’s hand. 

Walking to the window, he saw it was a crumpled letter. He 
smoothed it out and read — 

“ Madam,— As 1 find that your friends are trying to keep the truth 
from you, 1 feel it my duty to inform you that your husband. Cap- 
tain Drew, is still, alive. The woman who lived with him placed 
him in a lunatic asylum abroad before she declared him dead. 

“ Your servant, 

“ A Well-wisher.” 

“ Heaven help her!” said the Rector, thrusting the paper into his 
pocket. “The vipers! What is it for? To extort money?” It 
seemed impossible to him that creatures capable of writing these 
anonymous letters w^ould have the courage to proclaim a jie — so bis 
heart failed him. 

“ It would be as w’^ell perhaps it this were death,” he thought, 
seating himself sadly and silently near the prostrate figure. 

The squire sat at a distance, his face buried in his hands, afraid to 
inquire what all this meant, with an intuitive perception that the 
first marriage was somehow the cause. Lilith stood alternately^ 
watching her mother and the window by which Dr. Fyres must 
"pass to reach the entrance. 

The clock ticked away heavily. The seconds seemed whole pain- 
ful minutes. The Rector felt stupefied, bereft of ideas. If no news 
came, what was he to do? He told himself he must telegraph. But 
where, and to whom ? 

“ The affair has come to a dead-lock,” he thought, just as cheer- 
ful active little Dr. Fyres arrived, and came in rubbing his hands 
afid nodding pleasantly around, as if it were the most ordinary ex- 
perience to see beautiful patients laid ofit corpse- like upon tbe floor. 

“You have not moved her? Quite right, quite right. Let her 
lie, poor soul!” he said, feeling her pulse. “ She wants rest— nerv- 
ous shock. Pray do not alarm yourself, my dear lady ” — to Madam 
Ware— “ and you, Rector. ^Vhy, I should have asked your help by- 


A WOMAN'S LOVE-STOKY. 171 

and- by to assist in carrying Mrs. Macdonald to her room; but by the 
time she is in a fit state to be moved some one else will be here who 
has a prior right. ” 

“ What?” ^gasped the rector. 

“ Oh, yes, there is little doubt of the prior right!” said the little 
doctor aside to Mr. Rawson, smiling and squinting slightly as he 
dropped some liquid from a little vial he drew from his breast- 
pocKet into a wine-glass. ” In the station road 1 passed Mr. Mac- 
dona'd and that foreign-looking young gentleman who was at the 
wedding. Mr. Macdonald looked so changed, so worn, that 1 at 
once said to myself ‘ A little matrimonial breeze!’ Of course 1 may 
be wrong,” he added, reading horror in the Rector’s face, ‘‘ but I 
hope not, for these things so soon blow over, and no harm done. 
May 1 trouble you for the water-jug? Thanks!” 

As Dr. Fyres w’ent back to his patient to try to administer the 
draught, the Rector was giddy with mingled fear and hope. They 
were coming, but what news would they bring? Surely Willie 
would not come there to break to Lilian the news that Captain Drew 
still lived? But would he not have telegraphed — would he not have 
hurried back — had his news been good news? 

He closed his eyes; he felt more tired and low-spirited through 
this late worry than he had felt after writing a difficult paper on 
” the connection of languages in regard to their origin,” which had 
kept him up for several nights. The moisture was stealing ihiough 
his eyelashes, and he was telling himself that he was growing very 
old, when the door opened, and two people stood in the d«»orway. 

The figures were still — black efiigies against the light; then sud- 
denly there was a cry, and William Macdonald rushed forward and 
flung himself down by his wife. 

borne one, who really was Michael Druce, went round saying — 

” Everything is all right; I give you my word it is.” 

Then the Rector found himself begging each person present to 
** leave them alone.” 

”1 think you are perfectly right, ” said Dr. Fyres, offering his 
arm to Madam Ware. ” Mrs. Macdonald has quite recovered from 
her fainting-fit now ” — dryly, with a glance toward Lilian, wLose 
head was supported on her husband’s shoulder. ” We had better 
adjourn to the drawing-room, and I will prescribe for all this undue 
excitabilitj^” 

When they were all seated, Michael stood on the hearthrug and 
related the terrible scare, gravely, but with an admixture of dry j 
humor which softened the pain of those who had been sufferers 
theieby, notably Lilith and the Rector. They had met with no diffi- 
culty, he and Willie. Arrived at the town wfience the actress had 
written to General Drew informing him of his son’s death, they 
went stiaightway to the Protestant minister, who had seen Captain 
Drew constantly during his lifetime, had kept the certificate of 
death, had been present when the coffin was closed, and had buried 
the corpse of a man whose ill deeds had caused such cruel pain to^ 
so many. On their way to ileathside, they had stayed a couple of 
hours in London, and had seen the detectives who had found the 
old people, and also saiisfactoiy proofs that the communications 
which bad caused all the trouble had emanated from them. 


173 A woman's LOVE-STORY. ' '' 

■Willie and Lilian took no steps to punish the old folk; instead, 
Willie secretly saw that they were provided tor while prevented from 
doing more mischief. Meanwhile the miserable old couple could 
not “leave well alone.” They made efforts to find General Drew 
and his sisters — their orphan grandchildren — that they might better 
their position through the young people's influence; however, some 
kind friends had foreseen this possibility. 

One day, when Lilian asked her husband about Captain Drew’s 
unfortunate children, he smiled, and showed her a photograph. It 
was of a comfortable little homestead in an Australian settlement. 
A pleasant-looking young mother was sitting on a bench, a baby in 
her arms, and General Drew was lounging on the grass, wliile his 
two sisters were smilingly clinging to her, and her stalwart bearded 
husband stood behind them. Captain Drew’s children had a new 
name, new parents, in a new country, and were not cared for by the 
young emigrants who had adopted them only because of the capital 
they had brought, but out of good honest love. 

* * * * * 

Lilian and Willie were happy. They were enjoying the blessed- 
ness, almost too keen for earth-life, of ‘sudden lelief from a cruel 
care, an overpowering dread. Those who have known this transi- 
tion go their ways in awe, and are perhaps never quite so hopeful 
or quite so free from “ fear and trembling ” as the rest of their kind 
who have traveled over level groimd. But, like all suffering, it 
stamps the character with an indelible seal; and those who have 
gone through the fire bravely and patiently come to a state of calm^ 
w^here ordinary annoyances fly over theif heads or disappear at their 
very tread. 

**■»***# 

Heathside Hajl, a year later, was so peaceful, so bright, that it 
would have required a powerful imagination and a lively faith in an 
onlooker who heard the story of the trials and troubles of its inmates 
to credit that any of the placid happy-looking people within its walls 
had bravely gone through such ups and downs. 

The squire, hearty as ever, took a lively interest in his “ children,” 
as he promiscuously called Willie and Lilian Macdonald and their 
son, also Colonel and Mrs. Ware and their lately-arrived little 
daughter, and the newly-arrived couple, Mr. and Mrs. Michael 
Druce. 

Michael and Lilith lived with their sweet little French mother in 
the old house in the lane; but they paid constant, if short, visits to 
the old home— -the place where they first began to love each other. 
Their match had been made very simply, so simply that it was a 
long time before Lilith ceased to blush, or Michael to laugh, when 
their engagement was alluded to. 

On the day when the violent storm broke upon the husband and 
wife, William and Lilian Macdonald, but ended in calm and sun- 
shine, these two, Michael and Lilith, both almost children in world- 
liness, children in their love for their fellow-creatures and their art, 
w^ent out into the garden. Lilith took refuge in the old wigwam. 


A woman’s love-story. 


173 


and was sobbing out all lier pain and suspense and relief, her head 
upon the wooden table, little dreaming that any human creature 
was near, when she heard some one saying, “ Gh, dear, oh, dear!’* 
And, looking up, she saw it was the young man whose love she had 
rejected, but to whom she had instinctively gone in the time of 
trouble. Tears were streaming down his brown cheeks, and he was 
contemplating her with such a pitiful hopeless look that she laughed, 
hysterically perhaps, but still she laughed. Then they shook hands, 
then — neither knew how, or when, or why — they kissed each other 
like two children, and like two children went back, clinging to each 
other, to the house. 

“You have no idea how it hurts me to see you cry, or 1 am sure 
you wouldn't do it,” said Michael. 

“ 1 won't again,” said Lilith, utterly subdued. 

They had not said one word about marriage or love; but they 
knew that this meant both. 

On the terrace they met Madam Ware, and Michael said — 

“ Lilith will be my wife, if you and the squire and Mrs. Mac- 
donald will let us.” 

But Madam Ware only smiled, and told them they were silly 
children, adding for theii’ comfort— 

“ Not but what 1 really do think your marriage is made in 
heaven, all the same.” 


THE END. 


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58 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. . • • • • 1§ 

75 Madcap Violet (small ty^). If 

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451 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 14 

568 Green Pastures and Piccadilly • • li 

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826 Oliver Goldsmith, II 

450 Sunrise A Story of These Timea M 

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i!461 The Four MacNicois If 

S64 Mr Pisistratua Brown, M,P., in tlM Hi^lands if 

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190 Henry Dunbar ^ 

215 Birds of Prey 20 

235 An Open Verdict ^ 

251 Lady Audley’s Secret 20 

254 The Octoioon 10 

260 Charlotte’s Inheritance 2© 

287 Leighton Grange 10 

295 Lost for Love. . - 20 

822 Dead-Sea Fruit 20 

459 The Doctor’s Wife 20 

469 Rupert Godwin..., 2C 

481 Vixen 20 

482 The Cloven Foot 20 

500 Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. 20 

519 Weavers and Weft. 10 

525 Sir Jasper’s Tenant 20 

539 A Strange World : 20 

550 Fenton’s Quest. 20 

562 John Marchmont’s Legacy 20 

672 The Lady’s Mile 20 

579 Strangers and Pilgrims 20 

581 Only a Woman (Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon) 2C 

619 Taken at the Flood 20 

641 Only a Clod 20 

649 Publicans and Sinners 2© 

656 George Caulfield’s Journey 10 

665 The Shadow in the Corner 10 

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701 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery 2© 

705 Put to the Test (Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon^^^^^. .... 20 
784 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daughter. Part I 20 

Diftvola; or, Nobody ’s_J^ughter,_ 11. o.o 6 . o o iS. 



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1 MUNRO’S PUBLICATIONS. 


THE SEASIBE LIBRAET.-POOKET EDITION, 

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318 The Pioneers; or, The Sources of the j 3'30 A Bit of Human Nature. By David f 

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819 Face to Face: A Fact in Seven Fa- j ance. By Mrs. Oliphant,..^ 10 

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1 3,2;l A Wdllful Maid 20 

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